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

CHAPTER 13 Infil

My body was tense and my abs screamed as I tried to fold my legs into my chest.

All I could see was the ground coming up at me through the large open door. Helicopters are not like airplanes that can glide in for a crash landing. When helicopters stop working, they fall out of the sky like a rock. When they hit, rotor blades snap off, sending shrapnel and debris in all directions. Sitting in the open door, I feared the cabin would roll, crushing me underneath.

I could feel Walt tugging on my kit, pulling me back inside the cabin. No matter how much I pulled my legs close, they were still outside the door. The sniper next to me was stuck with one leg inside the cabin and the other outside of it.

It is hard to describe the feeling of riding a helicopter into the ground. I don’t think my mind fully grasped what was happening. I had it in my mind that maybe I could stay in the door like a Looney Tunes cartoon character. You know, when the house falls off the cliff and the character escapes by opening the front door. For a split second I figured that when the helicopter hit and rolled, I’d land in the door and be safe.

The privacy wall around the compound quickly passed by as we headed for the ground.

When the helicopter rotated ninety degrees, the tail rotor barely missed the wall on the south side of the compound. I could feel fear grip my chest as the ground rushed toward me. I had no control, and I think that scared me most of all. I always figured I would probably die in a gunfight, not in a helicopter crash. We were all used to stacking the odds in our favor. We knew the dangers. We did the battlefield calculus and we trusted our skills. But clinging to a helicopter, there was nothing we could do.

Seconds before impact, I felt the nose dip. I held my breath and waited for impact. The helicopter shuddered as the nose dug into the soft ground like a lawn dart. One minute, the ground was rushing up at me. The next minute, I was at a dead stop. It happened so fast, I didn’t even feel the impact.

The blades didn’t snap off. Instead, the rotors blasted the muddy courtyard, blowing dust and debris and creating a maelstrom around us.

I exhaled and blinked the dust out of my eyes. Squinting against the assault of rocks and dust, I realized we were still about six feet above the ground at a steep angle.

“Get the fuck out,” Walt yelled at me, shoving me forward.

I dropped from the cabin and landed in the courtyard in a crouch. Despite wearing more than sixty pounds of gear, I didn’t feel the weight or the jolt from the fall. Without looking back, I ran forward like an Olympic sprinter away from the wreck. Sliding to a halt about thirty yards away, I turned back and saw the wreckage for the first time.

When the helicopter crashed, the tail boom got caught up on the twelve-foot privacy wall. The tail’s single load-bearing section propped the Black Hawk up and kept the rotors from hitting the ground. If any other part of the helicopter hit the wall, or if we had tipped and the rotor hit the ground first, none of us would be walking away unscathed. Teddy and his copilot had somehow pulled off the impossible.

I could see my teammates dropping out of the cabin and dashing through a gap underneath the helicopter as it rested at an angle against the wall.

Like my teammates, I had gotten good at compartmentalizing stressful situations over my career, and now I had to block the crash out. Two minutes ago, I was pissed we were going to land outside the compound, but now we were alive and on the ground inside the walls. Despite the near-disaster the mission was still on track.

My teammates were already headed to the gate that led us back into the main compound. I needed to get my ass in gear because if Charlie or Walt saw me standing there while they were already moving to their positions I would never hear the end of their shit-talking.

We had scheduled thirty minutes to complete the mission based on the helicopter’s fuel consumption and a possible response time from the Pakistanis. We had built in an additional ten minutes of flextime just in case. Running back toward the helicopter, I figured we needed those extra minutes now.

The way the helicopter was perched on the wall, I didn’t have enough room to clear the rotors in the front. It was dark and even with my night vision it was impossible to be sure how high the rotors were spinning. The only way to get to the compound was by going underneath the wreck.

“I am going explosive,” I heard Charlie say over the troop net. I could see him at the gate to the main compound, setting the charge.

Putting my head down, I raced toward the wreck. As I got close, I tried to hug the wall as I ran underneath the tail boom. Hot exhaust blew down from the engines as I passed. It was like walking inside a hair-dryer for a few seconds.

Coming out on the other side, I could see Charlie prepping a charge on the locked iron gate. All around him were guys with their weapons trained out, pulling security.

I moved toward a prayer room near the gate to make sure it was clear. The room had a large open area with thick rugs on the floor and pillows forming a perimeter around the walls. We knew from the intelligence analysts that the room was most likely used to meet guests, but that seemed to be infrequent. Once cleared, I pulled off an IR chemlight and threw it by the door to alert the others the room was secure.

When I got back outside, Charlie was checking his back blast to make sure no one could get hit by shrapnel from the breaching charge. I saw the quick flash as Charlie hit the detonator and smoothly rolled back out of the way like he had done thousands of times.

We all dipped our heads to protect our eyes. No one was panicked or nervous. We were on the ground and finally it was up to us to get the job done.

The explosion sent a shock wave that blew a hole in the gate. Charlie was the first through, kicking and pulling the scorched metal wider so we could fit. Guys quickly started to pile through and peel off toward their planned objectives. Despite the first few curveballs, we were now back on our original plan.

After clearing the gate, I caught a glimpse of the second Black Hawk carrying Chalk Two. I could tell by the way the helicopter was hovering that Chalk Two had already landed the perimeter security team outside the walls of the compound. From the dozens of times we had trained in the mock-up, I was used to getting rotor wash in the face as the helicopter hovered over the building while the teams fast-roped onto the roof.

But instead of hovering above the house, the helicopter quickly disappeared behind the walls. The pilots must have seen us crash, and set back down to drop the team off outside the walls.

“Don’t worry about risking a bad position with the helicopters, just get the guys on the ground,” Admiral McRaven had reiterated during one of our final briefs. “It doesn’t matter where, the most important thing is to get them on the ground safe, and they’ll figure out the rest.”

I guess Chalk Two hadn’t wanted to gamble with fast-roping to the main building after seeing what happened to our helicopter. It was the right call.

I could hear the first few radio calls starting to chime in over the net. I knew from contingency planning that if Chalk Two didn’t fast-rope onto the roof, they were headed to a gate on the north side of the compound.

Heading toward C1, Will was next to me as we approached the front door of the guesthouse. The only sound that gave us away was the scuff of our boots on the gravel.

We knew that as one of Bin Laden’s most trusted couriers, Ahmed al-Kuwaiti lived in the guesthouse with his family. We expected at least one wife and several children. Since the kids lived there, I didn’t expect any booby traps.

Just like on the mock-up and pictures, there was a set of metal double doors with windows at the top. A window on the right side of the door had bars covering the glass. I didn’t see any lights on in the house. Sheets covered all of the windows, making it impossible to see inside.

Will took up a position to the left of the door while I tried the knob. I pulled down the L-shaped handle twice, but it was locked.

Stepping back, Will popped his sledgehammer off the back of his kit and pulled out the extendable handle. I covered him from the right.

Will reared back and hit the lock with a sharp whack. The hammer slammed into the knob, but only left a battered handle and a deep gash. Will gave it two more whacks, but nothing budged. The doors were solid metal and we knew the sledgehammer wasn’t going to work.

Turning to the windows, Will tried to smash out the glass so we could pull the sheet down and look inside. Wedging the head of the hammer through the bars, he tried to break the panes of glass but each time he pulled back, the head of the hammer got jammed. The bars were just too narrow.

“I am going explosive,” I whispered to Will, and grabbed the breaching charge off the back of my kit.

We both knew that time was of the essence and the element of surprise was gone the minute our helicopter crashed. Will set the sledgehammer aside and covered the door with his rifle.

From across the compound, there was an explosion as the team from Chalk Two blew the north gate open. “Failed breach” came over the radio. “We’re moving to the Delta Compound gate at this time.” After blowing the gate open, they had discovered a brick wall sealing it. The team was supposed to be assaulting the third floor by now, but they were still trying to gain entry.

“Roger, I will meet you there and unlock it from the inside,” Mike replied.

Delta gate was at the north end of the driveway that separated the helicopter crash with the rest of the compound. Mike was on the south end of the driveway, close to the guesthouse.

The mission was moving quickly now. It had probably been about five minutes since we hit the ground, and now twenty-four guys were swarming the compound. At least two charges had blown and, coupled with the helicopters, we knew they had heard us coming. Without a doubt, we figured the occupants of the compound would now be prepared to defend themselves.

Taking a knee to the right of the door, I peeled the backing off the adhesive strip on the breaching charge and set it across the mangled knob and lock. I always knelt while I placed breaching charges because I had been shot at through the door in Iraq many times. Fighters liked to spray the middle of the door, blindly firing where they thought a man would be standing.

The third member of my team entered the compound. He was one of the last guys out of the helicopter and had just gotten to us. His job was to clear a staircase that led to the roof of the guesthouse. As he started toward the stairs, which were directly in line with the door, AK-47 rounds tore through the glass above the door, narrowly missing him.

I rolled away as the bullets cracked just inches over my head. The first rounds always surprise the shit out of you. I could feel pieces of glass hit my shoulder.

“That is not a suppressed weapon,” I thought.

It was easy to tell who was firing, since we had suppressors on our weapons. Unsuppressed rounds meant enemy fire. Someone inside had an assault rifle. Aiming chest high, he fired a blind barrage. He was a caged animal. There was nowhere he could go and he knew we were coming.

Will, covering the door from the left side, started to fire back instantly. As I turned back and opened fire, I felt a searing burn in my left shoulder, probably glass or shrapnel. Our return fire cut through the metal door.

Rolling out of the “fatal funnel” of the doorway, I made it to my feet and moved to the window a few feet down the wall from the door.

“Ahmed al-Kuwaiti,” Will said. “Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, come out!”

Smashing the window with my barrel, I fired back toward his likely position.

Will was still yelling, and with no response. With no time to spare, I made my way back to the explosive charge, which was still hanging from the door. The only way to get inside was to blow the door. As I got close, I made sure to stay extra low.

Once we blew the door, I planned to throw a grenade inside before we went in to clear it. Ahmed al-Kuwaiti had proven he wasn’t going down without a fight, and I was not going to risk anything.

I was about to attach the detonator to the charge when we heard someone throwing the latch to the lock. Will heard it too, and we both immediately started to back away from the door. We had no idea who was coming out or what to expect. Was he going to just crack the door and throw a grenade, or hang his AK-47 out and spray?

I took a quick look around. There was no cover. The courtyard was crowded with trash and tools used to garden. Our only option was to continue moving back, trying to stay away from the window and door.

The door cracked open slowly, and I could hear a woman’s voice calling out. That didn’t mean we were safe. If she was coming out with a suicide vest on, we were dead. This was Bin Laden’s compound. These were his facilitators. Shots were fired, so we knew they were willing to die to protect him.

Through the sweat running down my face and the grit in my eyes from the rotor wash, I could just make out the figure of a woman in the green glow of my night vision goggles. She had something in her arms and my finger slowly started applying pressure to my trigger. I could see our lasers dancing around her head. It would only take a split second to end her life if she was holding a bomb.

As the door continued to open, I saw that the bundle was a baby. Al-Kuwaiti’s wife, Mariam, came out with the child pressed against her chest. Behind her, three more kids shuffled out of the house.

“Come here,” Will called out to her in Arabic.

I kept my rifle trained on them as they moved forward.

“He is dead,” Mariam said to Will in Arabic. “You shot him. He is dead. You killed him.”

Will did a quick pat down of the woman.

“Hey, she is saying he is dead,” Will said to me, translating her Arabic.

I was crouched at the right side of the door and pushed it open.

I spotted a pair of feet lying in the doorway of the bedroom. There was no way of knowing if he was still alive, and I wasn’t taking any chances. Will gave me a squeeze on the shoulder so I knew he was ready, and we entered the hallway. I shouldered my rifle and squeezed off several rounds to make sure he was down.

The house smelled of heating oil. Stepping over al-Kuwaiti’s body, I saw a pistol and an AK-47 on the ground just inside the bedroom door. I kicked them away and continued to clear the room, which had a bed in the center and then smaller beds along the walls for the children. The whole family slept in the same room.

On the other side of the hall was a kitchen area. Our return fire had destroyed the room, shredding the pantry and exploding dry goods all over. Water trickled off the counter. The stove had several holes in it and the cheap tile was smashed, with chunks strewn across the counter and floor.

The floor was slippery from the water and al-Kuwaiti’s blood, which had pooled in the hall and gotten on our boots. We hastily cleared both rooms and headed outside.

“Shots fired C1, building is secure at this time,” I said over troop net, and tossed an IR chemlight at the guesthouse’s front door. We moved toward the main building to backfill the other teams.