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

al-Kuwaiti would be armed or if he had a suicide vest. We anticipated all of the men—Bin Laden, Khalid, and the two Kuwaiti brothers—would fight back.
    After we rehearsed the best-case scenario, we started running through the contingencies. Instead of roping into the courtyard, we landed outside the walls and raided the compound from there. We also practiced tracking down squirters if someone ran from the target before the assault.
    Every single contingency was practiced to the point where we were tired of it. We had never trained this much for a particular objective before in our lives, but it was important. The mission was straightforward, but the extra preparation helped us mesh, since we’d been drawn from different teams.
    After the last rehearsals, we all met in the operations center. Jay was there with an update.
    “We’re headed home and then Monday we head out west for another week of training and a full mission profile,” he said.
    I raised my hand.
    “Do we have any official word if this thing is approved yet or not?” I said.
    “Nope,” he said. “Still waiting on Washington.”
    I looked at Walt. His eyes rolled. It was the “hurry up and wait” routine we had experienced with the Captain Phillips operation.
    “My money says we don’t launch,” Walt said as we left.

    We flew out to our training site early Monday. On Thursday, almost two weeks after we got the initial tasking, we had our dress rehearsal.
    The entire team and all the planners gathered in a massive hangar at the base. On the floor was a map of eastern Afghanistan. A group of VIPs, headlined by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Admiral Eric Olson, commander of the Special Operations Command in Tampa and a former DEVGRU commander, sat in stands near the map with Vice Admiral Bill McRaven.
    McRaven has commanded at every level within the special operations community, including DEVGRU. He impressed me. McRaven, the three-star admiral atop the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), was tall, lean, and clean-cut. Most admirals look old or out of shape, but McRaven looked like he could still get the job done. He knew how to work his level and had a good handle on the politics in D.C.
    We were about to execute what was called a “rock drill,” and everything from helicopter flight paths to the mock-up of the compound was present on the floor. A narrator reading off a script started the hour-and-a-half-long brief on Operation Neptune Spear.
    The pilots spoke first. They walked everyone through the flight path from Jalalabad to the compound in Abbottabad. They talked about the radio calls as well as any contingencies that might arise in flight.
    Finally, each assault team leader got up and briefed their individual tasks.
    “My team will fast-rope from Chalk One into the courtyard, we’ll clear and secure C1, then backfill the rest of the teams in A1,” I said.
    Most of the questions from the VIPs focused on the perimeter team. There were a lot of concerns about how our external security would handle onlookers.
    “What is your plan if you’re confronted by local police or military?” they asked the team leader.
    “Sir, we will de-escalate if at all possible,” he said. “First using the interpreter, and then using the dog, and then visible lasers. As a last resort we will use force.”
    Toward the end, a question was raised about whether or not this was a kill mission. A lawyer from either the Department of Defense or the White House made it clear this wasn’t an assassination.
    “If he is naked with his hands up, you’re not going to engage him,” he told us. “I am not going to tell you how to do your job. What we’re saying is if he does not pose a threat, you will detain him.”
    After the brief, we loaded up into the helicopters and took off for one final run-through. We were going to assault a mock compound so the VIPs could watch. It was the final hurdle. I knew we had to do it, but it felt strange to be watched like this. It felt like we were in a fish bowl. We all agreed if jumping through these hoops was going to help us get approval, the hassle was worth it.
    One minute from the target, the crew chief threw open the door and I swung my legs out.
    Grabbing the rope, I could see some VIPs near the target staring up at us with night vision goggles. As the helicopter started its hover over our fast-rope location, the rotors kicked up a maelstrom of rocks and dust, blasting the VIPs