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

CHAPTER 19 Touch the Magic

My phone vibrated, pinged, buzzed, and beeped as it started to receive a day’s worth of messages.

Seconds after our C-17 landed in Virginia Beach, every one of us turned on a phone to a cacophony of ring tones. I placed my phone next to me while it practically popped like corn in a kettle.

While we cruised over the Atlantic, news of the raid dominated TV and the Web. Reporters flooded Virginia Beach searching for real live Navy SEALs to interview. In Washington, anyone on Capitol Hill or in the Pentagon who had even a shred of information was leaking it.

When my phone finally stopped, I started to scroll through the messages. People had no idea I’d been on the raid. But anybody and everybody that knew I was a SEAL contacted me to talk about it. I had messages from my family and even friends from college who I hadn’t talked to in years. All the messages were the same:

“Hey, buddy, what’s going on? I’m watching the news. Just wondering if you’re in town.”

It was so top secret when we left that we weren’t even telling people in our own unit where we were going. But now, I had close to one hundred e-mails, fifty voice mails, and three dozen text messages asking me if I happened to be in Pakistan or if I knew what was going on. My family just wanted to know if I was in town and safe.

The plane barely came to a stop when the crew door popped open and the old commander of our squadron sprinted aboard. He was waiting to take command of DEVGRU. They had delayed the change of command until after this mission, so he was not with us in Afghanistan. He was one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for. All of the guys loved him because he always had our back.

As we gathered up our backpacks, he walked down the line giving everyone a handshake and hug. He wanted to be the first to welcome us back. We were still shaking off the haze of the Ambien, so it was kind of surreal to see his lanky frame and bald head move down the line. This was the first sign that our welcome home would be bigger than we anticipated.

The whine of the engines made it hard to hear as we got off the plane. It was pitch-black outside. Moving from the bright cabin into the night made it worse. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I saw about two hundred of my teammates lined up to greet us. I could make out their silhouettes as I walked toward the white buses that would take us to our base. It was about a fifty-yard walk to the bus and I shook at least a hundred hands.

We always tried to meet the plane when squadrons returned home. It struck me that anybody standing in that line shaking our hands could have been in our shoes. We just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I felt really lucky.

I didn’t have but a few seconds to yell out a hello or mumble a thank-you as I passed. We were exhausted and a little overwhelmed when we got to the bus.

Thankfully, there was a cooler full of beer and some hot pizza waiting for us. I settled silently into my seat. Holding my backpack between my legs, I balanced my phone on my thigh as I ate and sipped a beer. I looked around the bus. Everybody had their noses stuck in their phones trying to sift through the glut of messages. Roughly twenty-four hours ago, President Obama had addressed the nation about the raid.

For the first time, it started to sink in. This was pretty cool. It was the kind of mission I’d read about in Alaska as a kid. It was history. But just as quickly as those thoughts crossed my mind, I forced them out. The second you stop and believe your own hype, you’ve lost.

Back at the command, I didn’t even go inside. Our gear and weapons were placed in our storage bay and locked. There was no need to unload everything, and we were lucky enough to have the next few days off work. I threw my civilian backpack into my truck and headed home. I didn’t want to go out and hit the bars and celebrate. I just wanted some quiet. The welcome was overwhelming enough.

On the way home, I spotted the neon drive-through sign at the Taco Bell. I always stopped for a south of the border fix on my way home from a deployment, usually in Germany. I had made this stop several times over the years. Pulling into the line, I ordered two crispy tacos, a bean burrito, and a medium Pepsi.

At the window, a high school kid handed me my food and drink. I pulled forward into the parking lot and took out a taco. I spread the paper in my lap and drizzled some fire sauce over the cold, crisp lettuce and ate.

On the radio, I had the country music station playing. Between bites, I tried to make sense of everything. Days before, I’d been choking down chow hall food and trying to keep the mission out of my head. Now, I was eating Taco Bell in a parking lot on my way home and still trying to keep it out of my head.

I needed a few days off.

We joked before we left Bagram about getting some time off. I knew the rest of my squadron was off the coast of Virginia practicing underways. The command had rented a cruise ship and filled it with role players. It was a massive and expensive training event. It always sounded more fun than it really was. Inevitably, it turned into hours in the cold water being pounded by waves as you climb up the side of a ship.

After the final bite of the bean burrito, I rolled up the paper and threw it back in the bag. Taking a big sip of my drink, I put my truck in gear and headed home. Before I could relax, I unpacked and took a long shower.

But I was still pretty wired. I had just slept for nineteen hours. The TV was on, and I started to surf the cable news channels. Every show was airing something related to the mission. Most of it was speculation.

They reported that we were in a forty-minute firefight.

Then I saw that we’d taken fire while we were outside the gate.

Then, Bin Laden had a weapon and attempted to defend himself before we shot him.

And of course it was reported, in Bin Laden’s last seconds, he had enough time to look into our eyes and see that it was Americans coming to get him.

The raid was being reported like a bad action movie. At first, it was funny because it was so wrong.

But then photos of the compound flashed across the screen. For weeks it had been top secret and now here it was all over the news. I saw wreckage of the helicopter. The charges destroyed the fuselage but there was still a section of the tail rotor that survived. When the explosives detonated, the tail section broke off and fell onto the ground on the outside of the wall.

The Reuters wire service even had pictures of the bodies we left behind. On the screen, shots of the al-Kuwaiti brothers—including Abrar, who Will and I shot through the door of the guesthouse—flashed on the screen. A picture of where Bin Laden’s body had been came on next. I could see the dried blood on the rug.

I struggled to wrap my mind around it.

To see these images on prime-time television was hard for me to deal with. The images broke through the tiny compartment in my brain that I’d placed this whole experience in. I had no barrier between home and work now. I’ve always been good at mentally blocking out the “work” I’d done overseas. When I was home, I was home. Seeing these images was like crossing the two streams and it made my head hurt.

I didn’t sleep well that night. I’d squirreled away a couple of Ambien. There was no way I was going to sleep without them.

For the next two days, I dodged calls from friends and family. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. My family was asking me if I was involved. My parents knew I’d been gone, but they didn’t know where.

Before I left, I had called them and said I was going to train and wouldn’t have phone service. I always tried to keep things vague with them. I had sent my sisters a random text message before we left simply telling them that I loved them both. It wasn’t a red flag at the time, but after the news broke, my sisters knew I must be up to something.

The day after we got home, I was taking my trash can to the curb when my neighbor from across the street walked over and gave me a huge hug. She knew I was a SEAL and noticed I had been gone for a few days.

“You never really know what your neighbors do for a living, do you?” she said as she smiled and walked back to her house.

It was the same for my teammates. One buddy barely got in the door before he was back changing diapers.

“So I get home and she hands me my kid right away,” my buddy said when we got back to work. “We just shot UBL. Think I can sit down and drink a beer?”

Another spent the morning after he got home mowing his overgrown lawn. We might have been getting the celebrity treatment in the media, but at home we were just absent husbands.

When we finally came back to work officially two days later, Jay called us into a meeting in the same conference room where we first heard about the mission. There was concern at the command level about all the leaks revolving around the raid.

“It is imperative that we stay out of the media,” Jay said. “Let’s all make sure we’re keeping a low profile.”

I was astonished. We’d kept this whole thing under wraps for weeks. Now, Washington was leaking everything, and we were going to get the lecture for it. It felt like it was only a matter of time before some of our names appeared on the news. We just killed the number one terrorist in the world. The last thing we needed was our names attached to it. We simply wanted to fade back into the shadows and go back to work.

“With that out of the way,” Jay said, “here is your schedule. Take a week off.”

“But not a real week off, right,” Walt said.

I heard a chuckle from some of the others.

“When does the dog and pony show start?” I said.

“The agency will be down in a few days,” Jay said. “SecDef is also planning a visit soon. We will pass the word on the schedule once we have it. Enjoy the break.”

This time I laughed.

“Come on, everybody wants to touch the magic,” Tom said as we walked out of the conference room.

The mission hadn’t been that complicated or difficult.

Weeks and months after the mission, details about the raid were appearing with a renewed focus on the unit. It raised a lot of concerns for our personal safety. Most of us had already invested in home security systems.

Some of us voiced concerns to Jay and Mike at what seemed like a weekly meeting.

“What if our names are leaked to the media?” I said.

ABC News had come out with a ridiculous story about how to spot a SEAL. Reporter Chris Cuomo reported that the SEAL who shot Bin Laden was probably a physically fit white man in his thirties with a beard and longer hair. Then Cuomo did what the other reporters did. They found any SEAL who would talk about us, in this case DEVGRU founder Richard Marcinko.

“They have gazelle legs, no waist, and a huge upper body configuration, and almost a mental block that says, ‘I will not fail,’” Marcinko told Cuomo.

Other telltale traits: calloused hands from firing a weapon, shrapnel wounds from previous missions, and big egos.

“They are basically individual egomaniacs that make music together. They learn to depend on each other. When they are bored they play with each other to keep pushing. Otherwise, they get in trouble,” Marcinko told ABC News.

We laughed our asses off. I know he was a founder of DEVGRU, but he was hopelessly out of touch with the modern force. I didn’t know a single SEAL who fit his profile. We’d evolved past being egomaniacs. There wasn’t a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine in the special operations community that fit his profile. It wasn’t part of our ethos. We were team players who always tried to do the right thing.

But we weren’t in the meeting to talk about leaks and security concerns.

“Keep this on the down low because nobody knows this,” Jay said. “You’re going to meet the president in Kentucky tomorrow.”

With the dog and pony circuit in full effect, we had assumed it was coming.

“We’ll fly up in civilian clothes and then change into our uniforms to meet the president,” Jay said.

They dismissed us, and we were done for the day. On the way to my truck, my phone buzzed.

It was a text message from my sister.

“I hear you’re going to meet the president tomorrow,” she said. “Make sure you don’t wear shorts so they don’t see your gazelle-type legs and know you’re a SEAL.”

So much for operational security.

The next morning, we left on one of the oldest C-130s I’d ever seen. It had a new paint job, which masked its age from the outside. But getting on board, the inside looked old. Everything was faded.

As we climbed up the ramp, none of us were impressed. We were used to flying around in much newer C-130s or even C-17s.

“So much for rock star status,” Charlie said as he folded his six-foot-four frame into the orange jump seat. “I guess our fifteen minutes of fame are over.”

But a plaque near the door told us the true story. The plane was one of three MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft used in Operation Eagle Claw.

It turns out a crew chief found the plane mothballed and talked an Air Force general into renovating it and returning it to the inventory. It was sort of fitting that we’d fly to Kentucky to meet the president on that plane. It had a lot of history and I guess it had at least one more historic flight in it.

From the airport, we took back roads to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s headquarters, where Teddy and the aircrews were based. President Obama was scheduled to talk with thousands of troops from the 101st Airborne Division after meeting with us.

They ushered us into a large conference room to wait. Along the back wall was a table piled high with gourmet sandwiches, chips, cookies, and soft drinks.

“We’re moving up in the world,” I said. “This is way better than cold chicken fingers. Do you think they are going to make us pay for this?”

On one of the tables near the door was a framed flag. It was one of the flags we carried on the mission. Guys were signing the back of the frame and the plan was to present it to the president.

“Why do I need to sign this?” I asked Tom.

Like always, he was running things while Jay and Mike met with the higher-ups.

“Everybody that was on the raid needs to sign it,” he said.

“Why?” I just wanted an explanation.

“It’s going to the president,” Tom said, growing tired of my questions.

“How many hands does it pass through before it gets hung on the wall?” I asked. “Don’t they have tours of the White House?”

The only thing that remained secret was our names.

I went over to the other guys.

“Is everybody signing this thing?”

Most of the guys had already signed it.

“Just scribble a random name on there and you’ll be good,” Charlie said. “That’s what I did.”

After a lot of hurry up and wait, we finally walked to an auditorium to meet the president. The Secret Service ran us through a metal detector. When they got to me, the wand beeped when it passed over my pocketknife. I took my knife out and added it to the growing pile.

There was a small stage with rows of chairs in front.

Walt sat down next to me.

“I’d rather be doing underways than be here,” he said.

Obama arrived in a dark suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Vice President Biden was at his side in a blue shirt and red tie. The president stood on the stage and spoke to us for a few minutes. He presented the unit with a Presidential Unit Citation, in recognition of our achievement. It is the highest honor that can be given to a unit.

I don’t recall much about the speech. It was straight from the speechwriter playbook:

“You guys are America’s best.”

“You are what America stands for.”

“Thank you from the American people.”

“Job well done.”

After the speech, we posed for a few pictures. Biden kept cracking lame jokes that no one got. He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner. Before leaving to give a speech to two thousand soldiers from the 101st, Obama invited the whole team to his residence for a beer.

“What is the residence?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Walt said. “His house. The White House, I guess.”

“That would be kind of cool,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind going to the residence.”

Walt just smirked.

As the bus drove us to the airport, Obama delivered a speech to cheering soldiers in a hangar on the base.

“We have cut off their head,” he said, “and we will ultimately defeat them… our strategy is working, and there is no greater evidence of that than justice finally being delivered to Osama bin Laden.”

After that trip, things started to return to normal. We jumped back into our normal schedule, gone for a few weeks and then home for a week. We were back on the speeding train.

We never got the call to have a beer at the White House. I remember I brought it up a few months later to Walt. We’d just come back from the range and we were walking back into the team room.

“Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” I asked.

Walt’s smirk was back.

“You believed that shit,” he said. “I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”