Owen writes in the book: “I found a box of Just For Men
hair dye, which he must have used on his beard. No wonder he looked so young.” Owen had followed up
the fatal strike with a series of shots to the al-Qaeda chief’s chest to ensure
that he was lifeless. He writes: “We were less than five steps from getting to
the top when I heard shots.
"The
point man’s shots had entered the right side of his head.
“Blood
and brains spilled out of the side of his skull. In his death throes, he was
still twitching and convulsing.”
Navy Seal
ONE
minute out, the Black Hawk crew chief slid the door open. I could just make him
out holding up one finger and glanced around at my SEAL team-mates. The roar of
the engine filled the cabin, and it was impossible to hear anything other than
the rotors beating the air. The wind buffeted me as I leaned out, scanning the
ground below. An hour and a half before, we’d boarded our
two MH-60 Black Hawks and lifted off into a moonless night.
It was only a short
flight from our base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to the border with Pakistan and
then another hour to the target we had been studying on satellite images for
weeks.
The cabin was pitch-black except for the lights from the cockpit. Crowded around me and in the second helicopter were 23 teammates from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Five minutes ago, the cabin had come alive. We pulled on helmets and checked weapons. I was wearing 60lb of gear, a load refined and calibrated hundreds of times. This team had been handpicked from the most experienced men in our squadron.
This
was a mission I’d dreamt about since I watched the September 11 attacks on a TV
in my barracks in Okinawa. I was on deployment as a SEAL, and as Osama bin
Laden’s name was mentioned I figured my unit would get the call to go to
Afghanistan next day. We’d been training in Thailand, the Philippines, East
Timor, and Australia. Now I longed to be chasing al-Qaeda fighters. We never
got the call. I was frustrated. I hadn’t trained so hard and for so long to
become a SEAL only to watch the war on TV.
OBL
I remember I sent an email to my girlfriend
at the time, talking about the end of this deployment and making plans for my
time at home.
“I’ve got about a month left,” I wrote. “I’ll
be home soon, unless I have to kill Bin Laden first.”
The al-Qaeda leader personified everything we
were fighting against. He’d inspired men to fly planes into buildings filled
with innocent civilians.
I knew we were at war, and not a war of our
choosing.
Now,
after years of chasing and killing al-Qaeda’s leaders, we were minutes away
from fast-roping into Bin Laden’s compound. Grabbing the rope attached to the
Black Hawk’s fuselage, I could feel the blood returning to my toes. The sniper
next to me slid into place with one leg hanging outside and one inside.
The
barrel of his weapon was scanning for targets in the compound. His job was to
cover the south side of the compound as the assault team fast-roped into the
courtyard and split up. We were now less than a minute from the compound.
Intelligence said our target was there, but it didn’t matter — whoever was in
there was about to have a bad night.
I started to make out
landmarks I recognized from studying satellite images. I wasn’t clipped into
the helicopter with a safety line, so my team-mate Walt had a hand on a nylon
loop on my body armour.
Everybody
was crowding toward the door right behind me ready to follow me down. On the
right side, my team-mates had a good visual of the trail helicopter heading to
its landing zone. As soon as we cleared the southeastern wall, our helicopter
flared out and started to hover near our insert point. Looking down 30ft into
the compound, I could see laundry whipping on a clothesline, trash swirling
around a nearby animal pen, goats and cows thrashed around.
I
saw we were still over the guesthouse and could tell the pilot was having some
trouble getting into position.
We
veered between the roof of the guesthouse and the wall of the compound. The
crew chief had his microphone pressed to his mouth, passing directions to the
pilot. The helicopter was bucking as it tried to find enough air to set a
stable hover and hold station. The wobbling wasn’t violent, but I could tell it
wasn’t planned.
The
pilot was fighting the controls trying to correct it. Something wasn’t right.
I
considered throwing the rope just so we could get out of the unstable bird. I
knew it was a risk, but getting on the ground was imperative. All I needed was
a clear spot to throw the rope, but the clear spot never came. “We’re going
around. We’re going around,” I heard over the radio. That meant the original
plan to fast-rope into the compound was now off. We were going to circle around
to the south, land, and assault from outside the wall.
It would add time to the
assault and allow anyone in the compound more time to arm themselves. Up until
I heard the go-around call, everything was going as planned. Now, the insert
was going to s***. We had rehearsed this contingency, but it was plan B. If our
target was really inside, surprise was the key.
Crashed Tail
As
the helicopter attempted to climb it took a violent right turn, spinning 90
degrees. I could feel the tail kick to the left. It caught me by surprise and I
struggled to find a handhold inside the cabin to keep from sliding out the
door. For a second I could feel a panic rising in my chest. I let go of the
rope and started to lean back into the cabin, but my team-mates were all
crowded in the door. I could feel Walt’s grip tighten as the helicopter started
to drop.
“Holy
f***, we’re going in,” I thought.
The
violent turn put my door in the front as the helicopter started to slide
sideways. I could see the wall of the courtyard coming up at us. Overhead, the
humming engines now seemed to scream. The tail rotor had barely missed hitting
the guesthouse as we slid to the left.
OBL Home
We had joked before the mission that our
helicopter had the lowest chance of crashing because so many of us had already
survived previous crashes. Thousands of man-hours had been spent leading the
United States to this moment, and the mission was about to go way off track
before we even had a chance to get our feet on the ground.
I
tried to kick my legs up and wiggle deeper into the cabin. If the helicopter
hit on its side, it might roll, trapping my legs. Next to me, the sniper tried
to clear his legs from the door, but it was too crowded. There was nothing we
could do but hope the helicopter didn’t roll and chop off his exposed leg. Everything
slowed down. I tried to push the thoughts of being crushed out of my mind.
With
every second, the ground got closer and closer. I felt my whole body tense up,
ready for the impact.
EXTRACTED
from NO EASY DAY by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer, published by Michael Joseph on
4th September.
DISCLAIMER: TrayPacific and its trade mark are in no way affiliated with any of these groups or agencies.
Credit: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4516444/Osama-bin-Laden-used-Just-For-Men-to-dye-his-beard-black.html
