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.Political junkies on the left and the right will both be disappointed that “No Easy Day”, The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden” by one of the actual Seal Team Leader is remarkably un-political. “No Easy Day” is neither a political puff piece of “Mission Accomplished” or tale of interference and incompetence by elected leaders in managing the military. The book is more of a story of how America’s military capability has evolved from President Carter’s 1980 failed “Operation Desert Claw” attempt to rescue 53 hostages held in the American Embassy in Iran, into today’s ultra-competent military professionals
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Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pen name Mark
Owen, is the son of “missionaries who met
in college in California and found that their faith not only allowed them to
spread Christianity but also appealed to their sense of adventure.” Having moved the family to Alaska to spread
the faith, when Matt was five years old the family moved to a small Eskimo
village deep in the frozen interior.
Matt’s main connection to the outside world as a boy was bush pilots
that brought in hunting expeditions.
Matt relished going outdoors with his father who ran trap lines for
extra income and hunted for food.
Bissonnette credits his wilderness upbringing as
an enormous advantage in developing the mental and physical competitiveness
necessary to qualify as a Seal and excel in land warfare. Although he graduated from college and could
have entered the Navy as an officer, he enlisted on the advice of a former Seal
in order to get “more time as an operator.” After seven years as a Seal, he was chosen
in 2004 for the elite United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
also known as Seal Team 6.
Most books on Seals are overly dramatic with
heroic exploits and narrow escapes.
Bissonnette spends two thirds of his book describing how Seals are a
profession cadre that require extensive preparation, tremendous focus and
willingness to stay the course.
Bissonnette acted as point man for Seal patrols and eventually rose to
be one of four Seal Team Leaders. By
2009 Bissonnette had served eleven consecutive combat deployments to Iraq and
Afghanistan, in what Seals refer to as “The
Long War.”
In the spring of 2011, Bissonnette and Seal Team 6
got the word that they would have an opportunity to go after “UBL” (Osama Bin
Laden). It seemed that when Seals and
Special Forces had surrounded UBL at Tora Bora in 2002, military infighting
within the different services about who would get the capture allowed UBL to
quietly escape. Bissonnette describes
the real unsung hero of the mission who spent years meticulously developing the
intelligence as a selfless CIA officer he refers to as “Jen”.
Prior to the mission there are a few quotes in the
book from Seal members about the political importance of a successful UBL
mission: “And we’ll get Obama reelected
for sure. I can see him now, talking
about how he killed Bin Laden.” But
Bissonnette makes clear that Seals understood the importance of the mission to
the United States:
“We all knew this was bigger than us and bigger than politics. Maybe the officers and the politicians would benefit, but that didn’t make us want to do it any less. That was how things went. Our reward was doing the job, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Prior to the launch of the mission, Seal Team 6
was counseled by White House lawyers that the rules of engagement did not
require the killing of Osama bin Laden.
During the attack on the compound, UBL was shot when he tried to take a
quick peak around a corner. When the
Seals examined UBL’s room, it was clear that “Bin Laden knew we were coming he had not prepared a defense.” Bissonnette summed up UBL like most other
“high value” targets Seals hunted:
“The higher up the food chain the targeted individual was, the bigger a pussy he was. The leaders were less willing to fight. It was always the young and impressionable who strap on the explosives and blow themselves up.”
Bissonnette states that he wrote “No Easy Day” to
correct dis-information on the mission.
Within four hours after killing an unarmed UBL, the White House and
others leaked stories of a heroic Osama Bin Laden dying while reaching for his
loaded AK-47 rifle. According to
Bissonnette “We always prided ourselves
as being the quiet professions, but that quickly turned to dread as more
information leaked.”
Political types on the left that could not be
trusted to tell the true story are trying to paint Bissonnette as a modern
“Swift Boater” looking to cash in on his fifteen minutes of fame. The political types on the right are trying
to spin Bissonnette as a hero rebelling against his former Commander in
Chief. The real Matt Bissonnette is a
36-year-old from Alaska who soldiered for 13 deployments and just wants to set
the record straight.
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