No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

daylight.
    “You guys ever been up there?” the troop chief asked, pointing at the target compounds.
    “The furthest we’ve ever been is here,” he said, pointing to a spot not even halfway to where we wanted to go. “It took us six hours, and we made contact and got into a long firefight. We had to move back down out of the valley.”
    We spent a few more minutes talking about the plan.
    The troop chief looked at me, Steve, and the other team leaders.
    “What do you guys think?”
    This target was too good to pass up. Even with three fewer assaulters and no dog, we still had enough people to clear the objective. The drones watching the target reported no major movements, so we still had the element of surprise. We decided to scrap the plan of my team going up the goat trail and we would all combine into a single patrol taking the road part of the way up the valley, then split off and loop around to the high ground and assault the target from above.
    “Let’s do it,” I said when the troop chief looked to me. Steve also nodded yes.
    “You guys are still going?” the captain said.
    “Yeah,” the troop chief said, finally.
    “The attack on the base tonight might be a great cover for action,” the Army captain said. “Why don’t we send out a patrol with you guys tagging along?”
    He’d take about twenty soldiers out and patrol into a nearby village that was just down the valley to the south. We’d follow along at the back of his patrol, before peeling off and sneaking up into the target valley. If people were watching, and they were most likely doing so, we’d hope they would take the bait and follow the main body of the patrol.
    “You guys mind if we get some ammo before we go?” the troop chief said.
    “Sure. I’ll get it.”
    The captain started to organize a foot patrol, while we went back to brief the guys waiting in the outpost’s weight room. It had a few dumbbells, a weight bench or two, and a squat rack wedged into a room no bigger than a small home office. Sandbags protected the room, like the operations center, from mortar attacks.
    I replaced the few rounds I fired in my magazine and checked to make sure my team was ready. I could see Walt and Charlie loading their magazines as well. Walt was on Steve’s team, and since arriving out of Green Team he’d become tight with Steve and me.
    I’d heard about Walt when he was coming through Green Team. All of the East Coast SEALs seemed to know him, and they kept an eye on him as he worked his way up to the second deck.
    No taller than my armpit, he had hair that was already shaggy and a thick brown beard covered his face. He was short, but his cocky swagger compensated for it. He had a healthy dose of little-man syndrome and an inordinate amount of body hair. It seemed like the guy could grow a beard in days.
    Walt was supposed to start Green Team a year prior, but got in some trouble and had to delay his plans for an extra year.
    Walt and I got along almost immediately. He liked to shoot and loved guns as much as I did. One day on the range, I invited him out to the SHOT show, a shooting, hunting, and outdoors trade show in Las Vegas. Schedule permitting, we would go every year, to meet with vendors and see what kind of new guns and equipment were on the market.
    The first day of the trip, I introduced him around to all the vendors. By the second day, my contacts were asking me where Walt was hanging out. At a bar after the show the third night, I found Walt holding court with executives from the National Rifle Association. He had a cigar in his mouth, and he was slapping backs and shaking hands like he was running for office. They all loved him.
    Walt was the little guy with the big personality.
    The team had a quick huddle and I told them the goat trail idea was scrapped. We were now going to patrol up together.
    “We are going to go up the main trail and adjust as we get closer to the target,” I said. “Any issues?”
    Everybody shook their heads no.
    “Nope,” Charlie said. “We’re good.”
    It was like playing pickup basketball. We knew what needed to happen and all we needed was the basic plan. If you know how to “shoot, move, and communicate,” the rest will fall into place. When operations get too complicated, it tends to slow things down. Every single man standing in the weight room that night had years of experience. Plus, the plan always changed, so it was easiest to keep things simple. We’d done this before