A SEAL’s Own Story, Bin Laden and All

New York Times ^ | 9/2/12 | Mark Owen

[Evil Slayer]

The Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, learned from ABC News that they had “gazelle legs, no waist, and a huge upper body configuration,” not to mention calloused hands and gigantic egos. They learned from other American news sources that they had taken part in a 45-minute firefight and that an armed bin Laden, once cornered, had tried to defend himself in his final moments, staring straight at the fighters who would shoot him. Their raid was being turned into a bad action movie.

These distortions seemed funny at first. But “Mark Owen” (the pseudonym of one gutsy, transgressive member of the SEALs, who served 13 consecutive combat deployments) began to want to set the record straight. He hoped to deliver firsthand a visceral and often surprising version of the bin Laden raid and other SEAL stories. The emphasis of his “No Easy Day,” written with Kevin Maurer, is not on spilling secrets. It is on explaining a SEAL’s rigorous mind-set and showing how that toughness is created.

The bin Laden story is the marquee event in “No Easy Day,” of course. But the formative steps in the author’s own story are just as gripping. In a prologue the author, who grew up in Alaska and earned his SEAL Trident in 1998, writes about reading a book about SEALs (“Men in Green Faces” by Gene Wentz) as a junior high school kid, realizing that this was his vocation and hoping that he too could one day write a book that would inspire others. Mission accomplished.

[Evil Slayer]

BOOK: SEALS DIDN'T WANT TO HELP RE-ELECT OBAMA

[originalbuckeye]

The bad action movie will be out soon, complete with classified info and embellishments direct from the WH. I suspect this book came out now to counter Obama’s account with the truth. I don't know if the SEAL gave away anything classified but I would sure be unhappy if Obama was puffing himself up on my heroics!

[Slyfox]

He took out a booklet of pictures to help him realize that the Qaeda leader’s nose was his best remaining identifying feature.

This is a well written article. This is the kind of writing that used to make people want to pick up the New York Times, and read every word.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The worst it has to say about President Obama is that none of the fighters who caught bin Laden wanted to help re-elect him

The military had damn well start taking sides vis-a-vis existential threats against our Republic.. should have ended the Marxist-Alinsky campus spoiled brats' threats in the early 1970s IMO back then.

No way, say some. The military should stay out of it..

so some secret Islamist with billions of Middle East oil money hires Madison Avenue and Hollywood whores and they -- just as they did in 2008 -- orchestrate a campaign that could elect a hemorrhoid president. Then what? The military must follow the Islamist U.S. president's orders to stand down and surrender? Enforce sharia law?

[Chode]

i just put my order into Amazon, i'll let ya know when i read it...

[Hotlanta Mike]

After I read it it will go right on the shelf next to Doug Stanton’s “Horse Soldiers”

Doug Stanton discusses “Horse Soldiers”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arxKhJIjIiY

[cruise_missile]

I liked this paragraph.
“ That irritation mounts in 2011, when the SEALs anxiously awaited their signal to raid Abbottabad, but this account is determined to steer clear of serious politics or leave itself open to election-season manipulation. The worst it has to say about President Obama is that none of the fighters who caught bin Laden wanted to help re-elect him, and that he never followed through on a promise to invite them to the White House for a beer.”

[DNME]

You got it, William. The military had damn well BETTER start taking sides!

All military members swear an oath to God to support and defend the Constitution. That oath is never officially fulfilled, so every veteran is also bound to that promise.

So live that oath. Congresscritters are wholesale blowing off the oath they took, so SOMEBODY had better start living the oath or we’re all entirely screwed!

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Above I mentioned IMO the military needs to get involved politically when the issue is an existential threat.. I referenced Islamists (political Islam, sharia law advocates). Well there's a more immediate threat and with the help of someone who described the threat 150 years ago -- goes by the name of Abe Lincoln I heard -- I attempt to define it:

We initiated a policy to tolerate the Marxist-Alinsky radicals and let them rant; not only has it not ceased but was constantly augmented by decades of infiltration and indoctrination. We now have two Americas. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half statist and half free; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

Why should our military be obligated to follow civilians of the Marxist-Alinsky radicals variety?