In couple years of dangerous missions — from midnight raids on al-Qaeda safe houses in Iraq to battling Somali pirates from the deck of a heaving Navy ship on the high seas — there had never been one so shadowed by dread. As Robert James O’Neill contemplated his jump from a helicopter into Osama bin Laden’s private garden, he was positive it would be his last.
O’Neill, one of dozens of U.S. special operators to storm bin Laden’s hideout on May 2, 2011, said he mentally prepared himself to face death from heavily armed gunmen or from the elaborate booby traps that would surely line the approaches to the al-Qaeda leader’s inner sanctum. What he never expected was that he would secure a place in history that night, as the man who fired the bullet that ended bin Laden’s life.
O’Neill confirmed that he was the unnamed SEAL who was first to tumble through the doorway of bin Laden’s bedroom that night, taking aim at the terrorist leader as he stood in darkness behind his youngest wife. In an account later confirmed by two other SEALs, the Montana native described firing the round that hit bin Laden squarely in the forehead, killing him instantly.
His constant interviews did not go well in army as commander and master chief of the Navy Special Warfare Command emphasized that a “critical” tenet of their profession is to “not advertise the nature of my work nor seek recognition for my action.”
“We do not abide willful or selfish disregard for our core values in return for public notoriety or financial gain,” the letter said.
Eventually he was dismissed from the service for breaking the code of conduct.
