The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a Seal Team Warrior

ldquo;A riveting, unvarnished and wholly unforgettable portrait of America’s most storied commandos at war."
—Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Auteur

Robert O'Neill was born and raised in Butte, Montana, and lived there for nineteen years until he joined the Navy in 1996. Deploying as a SEAL more than a dozen times, O'Neill participated in more than four-hundred combat missions across four different theaters of war. During his remarkable career, he was decorated more than fifty-two times. Among the honors he received were two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars with Valor, a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor, three Presidential Unit Citations, and a Navy/Marine Corps Commendation with Valor.

O'Neill helped cofound Your Grateful Nation, an organization committed to transitioning Special Operations veterans into their next successful career. You can find him at RobertJONeill.com.

Texte du rabat

This instant New York Times bestseller—"a jaw-dropping, fast-paced account" (New York Post) recounts SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's incredible four-hundred-mission career, including the attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips, and which culminated in the death of the world's most wanted terrorist—Osama bin Laden.

In The Operator, Robert O'Neill describes his idyllic childhood in Butte, Montana; his impulsive decision to join the SEALs; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the SEALs' most elite unit. After officially becoming a SEAL, O'Neill would spend more than a decade in the most intense counterterror effort in US history. For extended periods, not a night passed without him and his small team recording multiple enemy kills—and though he was lucky enough to survive, several of the SEALs he'd trained with and fought beside never made it home.

"Impossible to put down…The Operator is unique, surprising, a kind of counternarrative, and certainly the other half of the story of one of the world's most famous military operations…In the larger sense, this book is about…how to be human while in the very same moment dealing with death, destruction, combat" (Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author). O'Neill describes the nonstop action of his deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evokes the black humor of years-long combat, brings to vivid life the lethal efficiency of the military's most selective units, and reveals details of the most celebrated terrorist takedown in history. This is "a riveting, unvarnished, and wholly unforgettable portrait of America's most storied commandos at war" (Joby Warrick).

Résumé
This instant New York Times bestseller—“a jaw-dropping, fast-paced account” (New York Post) recounts SEAL Team Operator Robert O’Neill’s incredible four-hundred-mission career, including the attempts to rescue “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips, and which culminated in the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist—Osama bin Laden.

In The Operator, Robert O’Neill describes his idyllic childhood in Butte, Montana; his impulsive decision to join the SEALs; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the SEALs’ most elite unit. After officially becoming a SEAL, O’Neill would spend more than a decade in the most intense counterterror effort in US history. For extended periods, not a night passed without him and his small team recording multiple enemy kills—and though he was lucky enough to survive, several of the SEALs he’d trained with and fought beside never made it home.

“Impossible to put down…The Operator is unique, surprising, a kind of counternarrative, and certainly the other half of the story of one of the world’s most famous military operations…In the larger sense, this book is about…how to be human while in the very same moment dealing with death, destruction, combat” (Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author). O’Neill describes the nonstop action of his deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evokes the black humor of years-long combat, brings to vivid life the lethal efficiency of the military’s most selective units, and reveals details of the most celebrated terrorist takedown in history. This is “a riveting, unvarnished, and wholly unforgettable portrait of America’s most storied commandos at war” (Joby Warrick).

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The Operator

CHAPTER ONE

I owe my career as a Navy SEAL to a girl. I’m not the first, and I doubt I’ll be the last.

She was younger than I was, a brunette with the face of a supermodel, great dance moves, and—key to my heart—a quick sense of humor. The first time I tried to kiss her, I closed my eyes too soon and I heard her say, “Uh, what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna kiss you.”

“Not before you ask me out, you’re not,” she said.

“Will you go out with me tomorrow then?”

“Pick me up at seven o’clock,” she said, then gave me a better kiss than I deserved and went home.

The next evening I picked her up at 7:00 sharp and, big spender that I was, drove her to Taco Bell. She ate a large order of Nachos Bellgrande and three soft Tacos Supreme.

Gorgeous girl, perfect figure, and the appetite of a lumberjack. I knew nothing about life, but I thought I was in love.

When I graduated high school in Butte, Montana—the same school my grandfather and father had graduated from—and enrolled at Montana Tech, the local college, this girl was still a junior. It’s just one of those things; you’re not going to date a high school girl when you’re in college. So I stayed away, but I couldn’t keep my mind off her. She went on doing her high school thing, dating and going to dances, which she damn well should have been doing. But I wanted it both ways, me having my fun and her staying on hold. I simmered miserably for weeks, then finally snapped when I heard she’d spent the day with some high school boy. With a couple drinks in me I went to her house to find out what was going on, and promptly made a complete ass out of myself.

Her father, a massive Italian with black hair, a burly mustache, and a square jaw, was famous around Butte for being tough. He owned a company that jacked up entire houses and moved them whole. I was certain he would have no problem moving me. But he took pity. Instead of knocking me flat, which would have been more than justified, he gently but firmly escorted me out the door.

That kindness provoked something of an out-of-body experience. After he released his iron grip from my elbow and sent me reeling into the night, I glimpsed myself as if from a distance. It wasn’t an attractive sight. I realized that if I was acting like this now, it would only get worse. I’d end up as one of those guys who hang around Butte forever, whining about the good old days.

So I knew. I had to go.

In my very limited experience, the way people got out of Butte was by joining the military. Though I’d never really considered it before, in that instant I was committed. The future, or fate, or whatever, kicked into high gear.

    *

THESE DAYS SOME PEOPLE MIGHT call my childhood “free range.” Saturday mornings I was out the door after breakfast and back only when the streetlights amped up. Kids ran in packs in my neighborhood. We ambushed each …