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

CHAPTER 18 Confirmation

Just inside the hangar, I saw Admiral McRaven.

He was standing by himself near the door with his hands in his pockets. He must have come over from the Joint Operations Center as soon as he heard the radio call that we crossed the border.

The truck stopped just outside the door of the hangar, and he came over to the back near the tailgate. He seemed eager to see the body.

“Let’s see him,” McRaven said.

“OK, sir,” I said, sliding off the tailgate.

I grabbed the bottom of the body bag and pulled it off the truck. It flopped on the cement floor like a dead fish. Kneeling down, I unzipped the bag. Almost all of the color had faded from his face and his skin looked ashy and gray. The body was mushy, and congealed blood had pooled at the bottom of the bag.

“There’s your boy,” I said.

McRaven, dressed in his tan digital camouflage uniform, stood over Bin Laden as I grabbed his beard and pulled his head to each side so the admiral could see his profile.

“He obviously just dyed his beard,” I said. “He doesn’t look as old as I expected he would.”

I stood up and backed away as the others gathered around the body. Many of the guys from the other helicopters hadn’t seen him yet. Soon, there was a crowd around McRaven, who had knelt down to get a better look.

“He is supposed to be six foot four,” McRaven said, scanning the crowd.

I saw him point.

“How tall are you?”

One of the SEALs answered. “Six four,” he said.

“Do you mind lying down next to him?” McRaven said.

After a quick double take to make sure McRaven wasn’t just fucking with him, the SEAL got down beside the body bag as McRaven eyeballed the measurement.

“OK. OK,” McRaven said. “Stand back up.”

The measurement was mostly a joke. But Bin Laden didn’t look quite like we had imagined. I am sure McRaven was having the same thoughts I had back on the third deck.

Standing at the edge of the crowd, I saw Jen. She looked pale and stressed under the bright lights of the hangar. Guys were still walking into the hangar when she saw Ali. He smiled at her and she started crying. A couple of the SEALs put their arms around her and walked her over to the edge of the group to look at the body, which surprised me.

A few days before in the chow hall, Jen had told me she didn’t want to see Bin Laden’s body.

“I have no interest in seeing it,” she told me. “My job description doesn’t include having to look at a dead body.”

I was sure this was some sort of bravado. She didn’t have to get dirty in her line of work. She wore expensive high heels and she didn’t worry about carrying dead weight to a waiting helicopter. She’d beaten Bin Laden on an intellectual level.

“If we pull this off,” I had told her from across the table, “you’ve got to see the body.”

Back in the hangar, Jen stayed on the perimeter of the crowd. She didn’t say anything, but I knew from her reaction she could see Bin Laden’s body on the floor. With tears rolling down her cheeks, I could tell it was taking a while for Jen to process. She’d spent half a decade tracking this man. And now there he was at her feet.

It was easier for us.

We saw dead bodies all the time. It was the kind of ugly we lived with, and we spent no time thinking about once it was finished. We were not jaded warmongers, but if you’ve seen one dead body, you’ve seen them all.

People at Jen’s level never had to deal with the blood. So to finally see Bin Laden’s body at her feet must have been jarring.

I wandered away from the crowd. Leaning against the truck, I set down my rifle on the tailgate and stuffed my gloves into one of my cargo pockets. Most of the guys were back now and coming into the hangar. There were a lot of smiles.

Teddy was one of the last guys to walk into the hangar. I could tell by his face he was mad and maybe even a little embarrassed by the helicopter crash. I intercepted him as he walked into the hangar and gave him a crushing bear hug.

“Teddy,” I said. “You’re the heat.”

He gave me a sheepish smile and tried to wiggle out of my grip.

“Dude, seriously,” I said.

I know for a fact he kept the mission on track by ditching the way he did. Everybody was focused on who pulled the trigger but it was a lot harder to land a crashing helicopter than it was for any of us to pull the trigger. One wrong move and we all would have been in a pile of debris in the courtyard. Teddy saved all of our lives.

“Strong work,” Walt said, giving me a handshake that turned into a hug.

For the next few minutes, we all rotated around, congratulating one another. People were still coming into the hangar. I don’t remember who I talked to as much as I do how it felt to be back safe.

It didn’t take long for the shit-talking to start.

“Blow up the house? Really?” I heard Charlie say to the EOD guy.

Eventually, we got together for a few posed pictures. We were one big team. As soon as the picture-taking ended, we all went back into work mode. Our five minutes of fun was over and it was time to get to Bagram to get the intelligence processed.

The Rangers had already packed up the body and were on their way to Bagram. We were following close behind in another plane. On the flight line, we loaded all our gear and strapped it down to the deck of the C-130. We walked on board still wearing our kit and carrying our weapons. There were few seats, so I found a spot near the front of the plane and sat down.

Nearby, I could see Jen sobbing. She was sitting on the floor, hugging her legs to her chest in the fetal position. I could just make out her eyes in the red light of the cabin. They were puffy, and she seemed to be staring into the distance. I got up and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, it was one hundred percent!” I said, leaning close so she could hear over the roar of the engines.

She looked at me in a daze.

“Seriously, no shit,” I said. “It was one hundred percent.”

She nodded this time and started crying again. I scrambled back to my seat on the floor as the aircrew shut the cabin lights off. Minutes later, we were airborne and headed to Bagram. For most of the forty-five-minute flight I zoned out. I didn’t really sleep but just rested. I knew we had hours of work left to do.

The C-130 let us out at a hangar along the flight line. Inside, a small cadre of FBI and CIA specialists waited to help us go through all the papers, thumb drives, and computers we recovered from the compound. As we walked into the hangar, it caught me off guard to see that the analysts were all standing at their individual tables with their hands folded behind them like in military parade rest.

A ring of tables with green plastic tubs full of food sat in one corner. Piled high in the containers were chicken fingers and French fries. A large coffee maker was pumping out one awful cup of coffee after another. It had been at least seven hours since we had eaten breakfast, but nobody touched the food. We had work to do.

Just inside the door, we started to offload our gear. As I pulled off my kit, I could feel pain shoot through my shoulder. It wasn’t sharp, but there was a nagging, dull ache. I tried to push my shoulder forward enough to get a look, but I couldn’t see any blood.

“Hey, Walt, is there something on my shoulder?” I asked.

He was unloading his gear too.

“It doesn’t look like anything crazy,” he said. “Looks like you caught some frag. Not bad enough where you need to get stitches.”

Inspecting my gear, I grabbed the bolt cutters on my back and felt a shard of metal cut into my fingertip. Holding the bolt cutters in my hand, I saw a good-size chunk of shrapnel embedded in the handle.

“From a bullet,” I thought.

When al-Kuwaiti opened fire, fragments from the rounds must have hit me before I fired back. The cutters rode high on my back, so the handle was only a few inches from my head. I was damn lucky none of the shrapnel hit me in the neck.

After a quick after-action review to go over the mission, we started to unload all of the stuff we’d taken from the house. It had been ingrained in us from BUD/S to take care of team gear, then department gear, and then personal gear.

We divided the tables into groups corresponding with each room on the target. I took all of my bags to the table for the main compound, third deck, room A. Opening the mesh sack, I started to unload the stuff I collected. I stacked the tapes I’d taken off his dresser and put the pistol and rifle on the table.

On the white board, we drew a diagram of the inside of the compound and then laid out floor plans for the main building and the guesthouse. I took my camera over to where one of the SEALs was helping the CIA analyst download all the pictures from our digital cameras.

“How are all the pics coming out so far?” I asked, handing over my camera.

“So far so good,” he said.

As the images of Bin Laden’s body popped up on his screen, I was relieved. Since we had the body, the pictures weren’t absolutely vital anymore. But I could just imagine if I fucked up the pictures I would never hear the end it from Charlie and Walt.

“You good?” I asked.

“Looks good here,” the analyst said. “That’s all we need.”

I had no idea if the photos would ever be made public, and frankly I didn’t care. That decision was well above my level and out of my control. I could hear the guys talking to the CIA analysts about the stuff they’d gathered.

“Dude, we’re so sorry,” said one of my teammates who searched the second deck. “There was so much more stuff. We didn’t have enough time. We could have done better.”

The CIA analyst almost laughed when he heard my teammate.

“You’re good,” he said. “Stop worrying about it. Look at all this shit. This is going to take us months to go through it all. We got more here than we’ve gotten in the past ten years.”

The intelligence turnover took more than two hours. At the front of the hangar and about thirty feet away from the tables, I could see the FBI’s DNA specialist taking samples from Bin Laden’s body. As soon as he was finished, the Rangers escorted the body to the USS Carl Vinson for burial.

Finished with the SSE turnover, I started packing up my op gear. I cleared and safed my weapon, switched off the optics, and packed it in its case. Hoisting my kit onto the table, I stripped off the unused grenade and explosive charge. There was no reason to bring them home.

I was just finishing up when Jen and Ali came over. They were leaving in a few minutes to fly back to the United States. The Air Force had an empty C-17 waiting to take them home.

She gave me a hug.

“I don’t know when we’ll see you guys again,” she said, walking toward the door with Ali. “Be safe.”

She had months of intelligence to sift through based on the raid, which would keep her busy. But unlike us, this hunt had been her life. Walking away, she seemed relieved and exhausted at the same time. For someone who spent most of the last decade trying to find him, I’m sure it wasn’t something she could easily walk away from.

With most of our gear packed up, guys started snacking on some of the cold food. We made our way over to the large-screen TV that had been set up at the back of the hangar. President Obama was about to speak. Everybody stopped and huddled around it.

Rumor had it that JSOC had reviewed the speech to make sure the details of the mission were kept secret. Nobody doubted that details would eventually leak but at this point, I think we all just hoped that President Obama could keep a secret for a little while.

“I give it a week before they say SEALs were involved,” I said to Walt.

“Shit, I don’t even give it a day,” he said.

At around 9:45 P.M. Eastern Time, the White House announced Obama was going to address the nation. By 10:30, the first leaks about Bin Laden were making the rounds. Navy Reserve intelligence officer Keith Urbahn was credited with breaking the news on Twitter. Soon, all of the major newspapers and TV news stations were reporting that Bin Laden was dead.

At 11:35 P.M., President Obama appeared on television. He walked down a long hall and took his position behind the podium. Staring straight into the camera, he told the world what we had done.

“Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

We all listened quietly.

Obama went on to thank the military for hunting al Qaeda and protecting American citizens.

“We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given Bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot,” Obama said.

The president stressed that soon after being elected, he told Leon Panetta to make killing or capturing Bin Laden a priority and outlined how we found him. That part of the speech was deftly crafted and didn’t reveal any harmful details.

“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability,” Obama said. “No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

None of us were huge fans of Obama. We respected him as the commander in chief of the military and for giving us the green light on the mission.

“You know we just put admiral’s stars on Jay,” Walt said during the speech. “And we just got this guy reelected.”

“Well, would you rather not have done this?” I said.

We all knew the deal.

We were tools in their toolbox, and when things go well they promote it. They inflate their roles. But we should have done it. It was the right call to make. Regardless of the politics that would come along with it, the end result was what we all wanted.

“McRaven will be running SOCOM in a year and will probably be CNO someday,” I said.

Obama called the mission the “most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda” and thanked us for our sacrifice.

“The American people do not see their work, nor know their names,” he said.

We’d expected him to give away details. If he had, we could have talked some smack. But I didn’t think his speech was bad at all. If anything, it was kind of anticlimactic.

“OK, enough of this,” I said to Walt. “Let’s go find some food or at least a hot shower.”

Word went out we had a flight home in a few hours. I found my backpack with my civilian clothes and boarded a bus for the JSOC compound. The team decided to try and squeeze in showers before heading back to Virginia Beach.

The compound had a handful of shower trailers. Standing under the scalding water, I could feel my body slowly starting to unwind.

Plus, I was hungry.

DEVGRU has a small section of the JSOC compound. It was our ground mobility shop. Basically, they kept all of our trucks, motorcycles, four-wheelers, and Humvees working. A SEAL headed it up and worked with a bunch of Seabees and mechanics.

The flight home got delayed a few hours, so we made ourselves at home. Inside the work area, the garage was littered with parts, tools, and vehicles in all phases of repair. We gathered in a small office area with a sitting room and lounge. The SEAL who ran the shop welcomed us with open arms.

“What do you need?” he said.

Comprised of a few modular buildings and a covered motor pool, they had carved out a small patio with a brick pizza oven and a large gas grill. Walt walked around the patio passing around a box of cigars the NRA had sent him weeks before to welcome him home from deployment. They had no idea we’d smoke them to celebrate the mission that killed Bin Laden.

Everybody was there except Jay, Mike, and Tom. The head shed were still over at the airfield briefing Admiral McRaven.

We spent most of the time on the patio soaking up the warm spring sun. The Seabees who lived at the compound were firing up the grill to cook steaks and lobster tail they had liberated from the chow hall. I could smell popcorn in the office and pizza cooking in the brick oven.

I was half asleep on the patio getting some sun when I heard someone yell out.

“You guys aren’t going to believe this shit. It’s already out.”

At one of the computer terminals, the team leader of the perimeter security team was reading the news sites. It took less than four hours before the news was reporting that it was SEALs who had carried out the mission. Then it was SEALs from DEVGRU based in Virginia Beach.

The mission had been secret for almost a month now, and suddenly it was all over the news. We watched footage of the crowds that spontaneously gathered outside the White House, Ground Zero, and the Pentagon. At a Major League baseball game in Philadelphia, fans started to chant “U-S-A.” Everyone commented about how young they looked. Kids like that didn’t know what the United States was like before September 11, 2001.

We watched the madness on TV, and I couldn’t help but wonder what my friends and family were thinking back at home. Nobody knew I was in Afghanistan. I told my parents I was out of town training and wouldn’t have my cell phone. I was sure everybody was calling my phone trying to see where I was.

The sun was warm as we sat outside and ate. Now full, all I could think about was sleep. The bus came back a few hours later to take us to the plane. The adrenaline was gone as we dragged ourselves on board.

The C-17 was empty except for the aircrew.

Our containers boarded first and then we followed, spreading our ground pads on the deck. As we got settled, I could see the crew chiefs talking with the pilots. Air Force C-17 flights are always hit or miss. Sometimes you’ll score a cool aircrew that will let you sleep wherever you want, while others are by-the-book and keep you in your seats.

As the plane’s engines warmed up, the crew chief got on the intercom.

“Hey, guys, we’re not stopping in Germany so we’ll be getting gas from an airborne tanker in route back to the United States,” he said. “You guys get some sleep.”

They obviously figured out who their passengers were, and the crew was cool enough to let us get some much-needed sleep. Typically, we stop in Germany for gas. Everybody was stoked the aircrew was going to be cool and that we were going to fly straight through. At this point we’d been up for almost twenty-four hours. Takeoff was quiet and then the plane headed west.

We were spent.

The media blitz we had just seen on TV and online was jarring. I don’t think anybody was prepared for it. But stretching out on the deck of the C-17, I didn’t have the energy to give a shit. My mind needed to turn off.

I took two Ambien and was fast asleep before we got out of Afghan airspace.