The Washington Times
published my review of Robert O’Neill’s The Operator.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin
Laden, founder and leader of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, the man
responsible for the horrific Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the
World Trade Center, and the most wanted terrorist in the world, was shot dead by
American special operators during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad,
Pakistan.
The story leaked quickly that
U.S. Navy SEALs from the superelite group known to the public as SEAL Team Six
were the operators who took down bin Laden and captured a treasury of
intelligence about al Qaeda as well.
In 2012 Matt Bissonnette,
author of “No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy SEAL,” claimed that he was
the operator who shot and killed bin Laden. Sources in the SEAL community, some
of whom were outraged at Mr. Bissonnette’s breach of security, claimed that the
“point man,” who has not come forward, was the actual shooter. In 2014 former
Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert O’Neill came out and announced that
he was, in fact, the special operator who killed bin Laden.
Now Robert O’Neill has
written “The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My
Years as a SEAL Team Warrior.”
In “The Operator” Mr. O’Neill
not only tells of the Abbottabad raid and his shots that killed the evil
mastermind bin Laden, he also recounts his involvement in the operation to
rescue fellow SEAL Marcus Luttrell of “Lone Survivor” fame in Afghanistan, as
well as his involvement in the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, who was
abducted by Somali pirates. The book also chronicles lesser known, but equally
interesting military operations.
Mr. O’Neill’s book also tells
of his Butte, Montana boyhood and how he came to join the Navy in 1995 and
became a SEAL in 1996. He describes in harrowing detail (and abundant humor)
his SEAL training and how he went on to join the SEALs’ most elite unit.
… I contacted Robert O’Neill
and asked him why he wrote the book. He said the book was an American piece
about a kid from Montana who didn’t know how to swim but became a Navy SEAL,
rose to become a member of the SEAL’s most elite team and then found himself on
some of the most historic missions in recent history, including the raid on bin
Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
“The story and my name had
been out there for a few years and there have been movies and books made from
the story,” Mr. O’Neill told me. “I wanted to tell a different part of it — my
part.”
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
Note: Below is a photo of Robert O'Neill:
