Abbottabad

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We're reading through No Easy Day, the famous autobiography by no-longer-anonymous Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette.
What follows is my summary of the most critical 24 pages of the book, the part that covers the raid on Osama bin Laden.
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There are a few details Bissonnette reveals here that I don't think anyone outside the president and his staff knew — and these are little hitches that would have made for a completely different mission.
Bissonnette describes how the SEALs broke up into four separate teams: two assault, and two Quick Reaction Force (QRF) teams that would remain on the periphery. I've heard these QRF guys called the "in-case-shit" teams, ready in case something out of the ordinary happens.
Matt talks about piling into the helicopters, or helos, and flying the 90 minutes out to bin Laden's residence.  He actually 'dozes' off during the flight — which I'm sure people will find strange, but, operators have been known to be able to grab even a little bit of sleep at a time, in bizarre conditions.
The flight is filled with constant checking and rechecking of gear, especially the safeties on weapons.
Bissonnette notes, as they fly over Jalalabad, that it looks like "an American suburb."
Then they're hovering over the compound, and Matt notes that the pilots seem to struggle with the aircraft. We all know that it crashed, but Bissonnette talks about what it was like from the inside.
This is really the only time he expresses fear. Thankfully, the bird props against the compound wall, sending the nose into the dirt "like a lawn dart."
They're all still six feet up in the air, and Matt is shocked, until he hears from behind him, "get the f*** out!"
Matt dismounts the helo, and now they have all entered what's called the most "gaseous" aspect of operations. For SEALs, training, is "solid and liquid," and operating is "gas." Gas represents the most adaptable, and unpredictable nature of real-time combat.
And already it's not going right. The next group of SEALs arrive and instead of landing on the roof, they land outside the perimeter.
Bissonnette diagrams the assault on Al Kuwaiti's guest house. The SEALs wire obstacles like walls and doors with explosives, a tactic they are infinitely proficient at using.
Then, as they're approaching and wiring Kuwaiti's front door, gunfire comes out of the window, barely missing Matt and his teammates. They all return fire instinctively, and Matt describes his rifle's IR beam, visible only to Night Vision, scanning the windows.
Just as he's about the to detonate the door, it comes unlatched and opens. The SEALs back away slowly and a woman comes out with a bundle. IR beams crawl around her head and face, and they all know she could be "ended instantly" if she's carrying a bomb.
But it's a baby.
"You've killed him," she says.
The SEALs file into the room and "dead check" Kuwaiti, meaning pump a few more rounds into his heart.
Then the assault on the main building occurs. At this point the other SEAL team has made entry into the compound.
They go up the stairs. They all know at this point that the remaining occupants are aware of their arrival, and the following gunfight. The SEALs try to stay as quiet as possible as they breach the remaining obstacles. At one point they're stuck, because of an unanticipated barrier, out in the open in a hallway.
Matt says he can barely stand staying still for so long, even though it was only seconds.
Any kid with an XBox and a First Person Shooter could relate, even if only superficially.
Finally they get through the barrier and are confronted with another obstacle no one expected: a spiral-like stairway, at a 90 degree angle to the floor.
They creep up the stairway, point man in front, Matt right behind him. At a few points Matt emphasizes that it's not like the movies, that it's not running and gunning, SEALs creep and sneak, "snoopin' and poopin'" as they call it.
It's pitch dark, but they have night vision. The point man sees a young man peer out the door, down the stairway. He assumes it's Osama's son Khalid.
Storming up would be a mistake, Matt says. It's a bottleneck, this staircase, and Khalid can easily hold off all the SEALs with just timed bursts of an AK-47. There's no way to do this without taking casualties.
Then the point man speaks, "Khalid ... Khalid." He calls.
The boy peaks his head out and the point man instantly buries one right in his face. Khalid's body, floppy, rolls out the door and down the stairs to the landing between the SEALs and his room.
They find out Khalid had an AK-47 loaded with one in the chamber. Ready to fight, to go down for his father. But curiosity got the best of him, Matt figures, and he wondered who it was that knew his name.
At this point, there's nowhere to go but up. They continue up the stairs.
Bin Laden's death was almost a precise replica of his son's. He peaked out as they were on their way up and then, from the point man, a suppressed "BOP BOP!" Two to the dome piece.
They slowly cross the threshold, emphasis on slowly, scanning the room, when two hysterical women ran at the SEALs. The point man grabbed them both in his arms and pushed them into the corner of the room.
Matt says this was an extreme act of bravery: the whole raid was rife with contemplation about the women being used as suicide bombers.
But they aren't strapped.
Then Matt and the next SEAL behind him close in on bin Laden's twitchy body.
I'll spare you the detail, but Bissonnette spares nothing here, he tells readers exactly what the guy looked like, wounds and all.
Then he and the other SEAL pump in a few more, and clear the room.
Last words of the chapter: "Third deck secure"