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

the hoses off our helicopter and dragged them back toward the CH-47. The rotors on their helicopter were starting to spin as the fuelers rolled the hose back up the ramp. The security team peeled back and got on board.
    One after the other, both helicopters lifted off and headed west for Afghanistan. No more blinking lights. Now all we needed to do was get back across the border.
    I checked my watch again. It took us twenty minutes to refuel. In my mind, I could see Pakistani jets chasing us. I didn’t know then, but the F-16s circled around Abbottabad before widening their search.
    My brain went back to the booklet on Pakistan’s air defenses. There was no chance they didn’t know we were there. I just hoped we had a big enough lead on anything chasing us.
    For the first time since getting the ten-minute call before the assault, I finally took my helmet off. Running my hand through my matted, sweaty hair, I forced all thoughts of jets and air-to-air missiles out of my head. We had roughly forty-five minutes until we got back to Jalalabad, and I didn’t want to sit there and worry. I was grateful when Tom gave us something to do.
    “Let’s search the body again and make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
    Walt climbed off of Bin Laden’s chest and put on a pair of rubber gloves. I slid the zipper down, and we pulled the bag open, exposing the body. Walt started to pat him down, first in front, and then he slid his hands along the body’s sides and back. Then we checked the pockets in his pants. We were looking for pocket litter—papers with phone numbers and other information.
    As Walt searched, I noticed the crew chiefs on the helicopter were trying to get a look at the body. They’d scan outside the door and then steal a peek over their shoulder at the body. We waved them over and I shined a red-lens flashlight on Bin Laden’s face.
    Their eyes lit up. They kept smiling. I could see both felt proud to be part of the mission. We had trained with them since the first days in North Carolina. Without these guys, there was no mission. They safely negotiated the Pakistani air defenses and now were minutes from getting us home. Seeing their excitement, I got my first sense that this was going to be bigger than we’d imagined.
    Walt didn’t find anything. He zipped the bag up and returned to his seat on Bin Laden’s chest.
    I closed my eyes and started to process what happened. Just more than an hour ago, I thought we were all going to die in a helicopter crash. It was funny, the crash stuck with me a lot longer than getting shot at through the door. I’d been in firefights, but the crash was a first. It happened in slow motion. I had time to think about it. I could feel tightness in my chest creeping in as I thought about falling out of the sky. I could see the ground rushing up at us.
    I had no control, and that scared me the most.
    Part of me felt like we had failed despite the body at my feet. We weren’t able to get as much intelligence as we could have. We left drawers unopened. The hallway on the second deck had stacks of boxes untouched. We usually did a better job, but we just ran out of time. We were perfectionists, and while the rest of the operation went smoothly after the crash, the SSE wasn’t up to standards.
    We were always our own worst critics.
    The radio squawked in my ear, shaking me from my daze.
    “We’re back in Afghan airspace,” Tom said.
    I’d find out later that we had a good head start, and the jets never got close to catching us.
    Fifteen minutes later, I could see the ring of bright lights in Jalalabad. It was a scene I’d experienced hundreds of times, and this time didn’t feel much different. I knew that we’d made it back and in a few minutes we’d be on the ground and safe.
    The helicopter set down just outside of the hangar. The protective halo of lights was on, and a white Toyota Hilux pickup was waiting for us on the tarmac.
    As we climbed out, I could see three Army Rangers from the truck coming up to get the body. They’d been tasked with taking it from J-bad to Bagram.
    The soldiers were led by a first sergeant who I’d worked with on my last rotation. He was still in the country since I’d gone home a month earlier. We’d run into each other a few times in the chow hall before the mission. He was squared away. We had a relationship of mutual respect.
    But as they started to come toward the cabin to grab the body, we waved them off. This was our