Mark Owen: No Easy Day

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.

“Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

We all listened quietly.

Obama went on to thank the military for hunting al Qaeda and protecting American citizens.

“We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given Bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot,” Obama said.