On May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 AM Pakistani time, two U.S. Navy Seals eased their way up a staircase in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, searching for the target of their mission, a mission called Operation Neptune Spear. In a bedroom on the third floor, that target came into the eyeline of one of those Navy Seals and was swiftly shot and killed with two bullets to the head.
The name of that Navy Seal is Robert O’Neill and he spoke at length to Cormac Ó hEadhra on the Today programme about his extraordinary training to become a Seal, the mission itself, and the split-second decision to “eliminate” this target.
“I turned to the right and saw Osama bin Laden about three or 4 feet in front of me. He was standing on his two feet with his hands on his wife’s shoulder….. I recognised who it was, I thought, that’s him, he’s not surrendering. I assumed he had a suicide vest on so I shot him in the face twice and once more when he was on the ground.”
According to Robert O’Neill, when they entered the room and spotted their target, Osama bin Laden began to push his wife towards them. As he was significantly taller than she was, Robert was able to pick him out clearly, and identify that he was not making moves to surrender.
However, also in the room at the time was bin Laden’s three-year-old son.
“The three-year-old son was standing there and I remember, as a father, thinking this poor kid has nothing to do with this fight and I wish he wasn’t here. I picked him up, put him next to his mom. Other Seals were coming into the room at this point. That’s when it began to sink in, well, we might just have pulled this off.”
“Why did you not attempt to take Osama bin Laden alive?”, asked Cormac. The answer, according to Robert O’Neill, was very much in their training. If it is not immediately obvious that the target is attempting to surrender, it is most likely they have a suicide vest on. Bin Laden had a second to convince the Navy seal he was willing to surrender, and he failed to do that. “I didn’t want to blow up and die with him,” Robert said.
But presenter, Cormac Ó hEadhra, wasn’t finished with the questioning. “When you pull the trigger and watch a life extinguished with the flash of a gun, notwithstanding that it is Osama bin Laden, what runs through your mind?” he asked.
“That’s a good point”, replied Robert. “I don’t make light of any of them. I’ve been in a lot of combat and have shot a lot of people. I don’t take it lightly. It is a human life. It is not funny. It’s something that needs to be done and I was asked to do it.”
Pressing the matter further, Cormac was interested to know the exact thoughts that might go through a Seal’s mind, at that precise point in time, the split-second the trigger is actually pulled, and human life is taken. The answer?
“Nothing.” According to Robert, the training takes you to a point where you are simply executing a job that has been given to you. Any analysis of the event, whether intellectual, operational or emotional, takes place afterwards.
Robert O’Neill has now published a book about his life as a Navy Seal and the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. It’s called The Operator and it is published by Simon & Schuster.
To listen to the full interview, click here.
Photo credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images