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

fighting the war with one hand and filling out paperwork with the other. When we brought back detainees, there was an additional two or three hours of paperwork. The first question to the detainee at the base was always, “Were you abused?” An affirmative answer meant an investigation and more paperwork.
    And the enemy had figured out the rules.
    Their tactics evolved as fast as ours. On my earlier deployments, they stood and fought. On more recent deployments, they started hiding their weapons, knowing we couldn’t shoot them if they weren’t armed. The fighters knew the rules of engagement and figured they’d just work their way through the system and be back to their village in a few days.
    It was frustrating. We knew what we were sacrificing at home; we were willing to give that up to do the job on our terms. As more rules were applied, it became harder to justify taking the risks to our lives. The job was becoming more about an exit strategy than doing the right thing tactically.
    “Good luck,” Steve said. “Who knows what we’ll see next year?”
    I laughed.
    “BB guns maybe,” I said. “Tasers and rubber bullets?”
    The command was small enough that I would still see Steve often, even if we’d miss him on the next rotation to Afghanistan.
    I quickly finished getting my kit ready and headed home. It was getting warm in Virginia Beach. Not hot enough to swim in the ocean, but nice enough for short sleeves. I was hustling to get some of the things on my “to do” list done before I left again.
    The first one was new mulch for the house.
    When I got home, a beat-up old F-150 Ford truck was parked in the driveway. The mulch guy had a tarp laid out with a large mound covering it. He’d load up his wheelbarrow with a pitchfork and deliver a load to one of the flowerbeds and then come back for more. It was a one-man operation.
    As he loaded up the wheelbarrow, I walked over to shoot the shit. I’d never met him, but some of my teammates had recommended his work. Spreading mulch was something I should do myself, but with so little personal time, it was easier to pay for it.
    “You’re in the teams, right?” the mulch guy said between scoops.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    From the look of him, he could have been a SEAL except for his long surfer haircut. He was tall and wiry, and he had tattoos covering both arms. He was wearing a ratty surf T-shirt and worn Carhartt pants.
    “Figured, you look the part,” the mulch guy said, setting down the wheelbarrow. “I just did Jay’s house. You know him?”
    “He’s my boss,” I said. “We’re actually headed out to do some shooting next week.”
    Jay was my squadron commander, but I didn’t know him that well. He had taken over the squadron before the last deployment. He didn’t go out on missions with us very often, so I never really worked with him. At his rank he was typically found running the Joint Operations Center (JOC) and helping us jump through hoops to get missions approved.
    We sometimes called our officers “temps” because they showed up for a few years before moving on to check another box on their career path. They bounced from one job to another, never spending enough time to build the kind of roots the enlisted guys did. We tended to stay with one team for a lot longer. Jay was my fourth commanding officer since being at the squadron.
    “I guess he’s been pretty busy lately,” the mulch guy said.
    I was surprised, since we’d been off for the last three weeks. After a deployment, most guys just wanted to hide out. It was normal for someone at Jay’s level to have work relating to mission coordination and planning. It just seemed strange that Jay was already so busy since we had been on leave.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I did his yard the other day,” the mulch guy said between loads. “There is something big going on, and he’s been up in D.C.”
    “What?” I said, confused. “He’s supposed to go to Mississippi with us in two days.”
    At the time, the Arab Spring was raging. Egypt had a new government and protests had sprung up across the Middle East. Civil war had gripped Libya, with rebels calling for NATO support. With hotspots in Syria, not to mention the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan still demanding attention, speculating on what could be spinning up was difficult.
    We were briefed weekly on any existing or expected threats worldwide. Our intelligence department went over each region in the world,