No Easy Day The Only First-hand Account of the Navy Seal Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

For the first time anywhere, a first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from inside the US Navy SEAL team who carried out the extraordinary mission to kill the terrorist mastermind. From the streets of Iraq to the successful rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from pirates in the Indian Ocean; from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, operator Mark Owen of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group - commonly known as SEAL Team Six - has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines. No Easy Day puts readers inside the elite, handpicked twenty-four-man team as they train for the most important mission of their lives, Operation Neptune Spear. The SEALs were going after bin Laden. Two weeks later, from a forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan, the helicopter-borne assault force took off into the night and flew low across the border.Then, deep inside Pakistan's heavily defended airspace, things started to go badly wrong. From the crash of the Black Hawk helicopter that threatened the mission with disaster through to the radio call confirming their target was dead, the SEAL team raid on bin Laden's secret HQ is recounted in nail-biting second-by-second detail. In No Easy Day, team leader Mark Owen takes readers behind enemy lines with one of the world's most astonishing fighting forces. It is the only insider's account of their most spectacular mission. Mark Owen is a former member of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Owen was a team leader on Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 1 May 2011, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist mastermind's hideout, where he witnessed bin Laden's death. Mark Owen's name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in this book have been changed for their security. Kevin Maurer has covered special-operations forces for nine years. He has been embedded with the Special Forces in Afghanistan six times, spent a month in 2006 with special-operations units in east Africa, and has embedded with US forces in Iraq and Haiti. He is the author of four books, including several about special operations.