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

supposed to be “go day,” but cloud cover delayed our launch. No big deal for us. We always get delayed, so we expected it. Getting delayed was better than getting canceled. McRaven wanted to make sure drones could watch the compound in case Bin Laden left while we were in route, and the cloud cover made that impossible.
    Our daily briefs were held in a long, narrow room with wooden handmade benches running down the middle like a church. At the front of the room were flat-screen TVs for PowerPoint presentations and to show us drone footage or satellite photos.
    Today’s briefing was standing room only. I was seated next to Charlie near the back on one of the benches. I saw several of the SEALs from the other squadron wedged around the model, which still demanded your attention when you saw it. They were studying it intently before the briefing. It was amazing how it sucked you in and you’d find yourself fixated on it.
    A portion of the briefing was about what to do if the mission went drastically wrong and the Pakistani authorities somehow apprehended us.
    The president had already given us the green light to protect ourselves, even if we had to engage the Pakistan military. We were going deep into Pakistan, and we needed a reason other than the truth in case we were detained.
    “OK, guys,” the officer said. “Here is what they came up with. We’re on a search and recovery mission for a downed ISR platform,” he said.
    An ISR platform is what the military calls a drone. Essentially, we were going to have to tell the Pakistani interrogators that the United States Air Force lost a drone.
    We all laughed.
    “That is as good as they can come up with?” someone said from the back of the room. “Why don’t they give us a bullhorn and a police siren just in case?”
    The story was preposterous. We were allies with Pakistan on paper, so if we did lose a drone, the State Department would negotiate directly with the Pakistani government to get it back. The story didn’t wash and would be very difficult to stick to during hours of questioning.
    At least we could laugh at it. Maybe they figured humor would help us endure. The truth is, if we got to that point, no story we could come up with was going to cover up twenty-two SEALs packing sixty pounds of hi-tech gear on their backs, an EOD tech, and an interpreter for a total of twenty-four men, plus a dog, raiding a suburban neighborhood a few miles from the Pakistani military academy.
    At the end of the brief, the commanding officer of DEVGRU came walking in. A captain with silver hair and a mustache, he’d lost his leg in a parachute accident years ago. As he walked to the front of the conference room, I barely noticed the slight hitch in his step from the prosthetic limb.
    The officer briefing us faded into the background as the commander got to the front. All of the laughing and grumbling about the cover story receded, and the room was silent.
    “OK, guys,” the DEVGRU commander said. “Just got off the phone with McRaven. He just talked to the president. The operation has been approved. We’re launching tomorrow night.”
    There were no cheers or high fives. I glanced back at some of the fellas sitting on the benches around me. The guys I’d operated side by side with for years.
    “Holy shit,” I thought. “I didn’t think it was really going to happen.”
    No more briefs.
    No more good idea fairy.
    And most of all, there was no more waiting.



CHAPTER 12
Go Day
    I couldn’t sleep.
    I’d spent the last couple of hours trying to get comfortable. But I found no peace on the hard mattress or in my own head. It was go day, and there was no getting around the significance of the mission now.
    Sliding open the camouflage poncho liner hung over my bunk to shield the light, I swung my legs out and rubbed my eyes. After three days of trying not to think about the mission, it was impossible to keep it from my mind now. If everything went as planned, in less than twelve hours we’d be roping into Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
    I didn’t feel tired. The only evidence I’d slept was the empty baggie that once held a couple of Ambien and a handful of empty bottles now filled with urine. Since we lived in overflow housing, it was a two-hundred-yard walk to the nearest bathroom. So I saved my empty water or Gatorade bottles to piss in instead. Standard practice. We’d flip on our headlamps and relieve ourselves without every truly waking up.
    I felt