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

by Owen, Mark

  Sitting in the helicopter, I checked my watch. I was impatient and wanted to get back to Jalalabad. I wanted to get out and help. We all did, but I knew the fuelers had a job just like we had our job. If I tried to help, it would only slow things down. And right now, the success of the mission hinged on the fuelers getting the helicopter airborne again.

  The lone CH-47 that extracted the guys from Chalk Two was long gone when the jets arrived over the compound.

  I watched as the fuelers snapped 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 mission.

  “Fuck no,” Walt barked. “We got this.”

  We’d gone all the way to Pakistan to get him. We needed to see this thing all the way through.

  I grabbed a handle on the body bag and we carried it to the back of the truck. I jumped on the tailgate, sitting backward. I could see everybody else piling out of the CH-47 and for a second felt a huge weight being lifted off my shoulders. Everyone made it back safely.

  As we drove, the first sergeant grabbed my shoulder. When I looked up, he had his hand out with a 75th Ranger Regiment coin in his palm.

  “You’ll be my son’s hero for the rest of his life,” the first sergeant said. “Congratulations.”

  I nodded. I was really just happy that everyone was alive and home safe. We didn’t have time to think about legacy.

  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.

&
nbsp; 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.