safe houses in Iraq to battling Somali pirates from the deck of a
heaving Navy ship on the high seas -- there had never been one so
shadowed by dread. As Robert James O'Neill contemplated his jump from
a helicopter into Osama bin Laden's private garden, he was positive it
would be his last.
"I didn't think I would survive," the former Navy SEAL said.
O'Neill, one of dozens of U.S. special operators to storm bin Laden's
hideout on May 2, 2011, said he mentally prepared himself to face
death from heavily armed gunmen or from the elaborate booby traps that
would surely line the approaches to the al-Qaeda leader's inner
sanctum. What he never expected was that he would secure a place in
history that night, as the man who fired the bullet that ended bin
Laden's life.
O'Neill confirmed to The Washington Post that he was the unnamed SEAL
who was first to tumble through the doorway of bin Laden's bedroom
that night, taking aim at the terrorist leader as he stood in darkness
behind his youngest wife. In an account later confirmed by two other
SEALs, the Montana native described firing the round that hit bin
Laden squarely in the forehead, killing him instantly.
More than three years after the events, O'Neill agreed to publicly
discuss his role for the first time, describing in unprecedented
detail the mission to capture or kill the man behind the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
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