The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

by Robert O'Neill

A brochure that had been thoughtfully provided in the recruitment paperwork revealed that to even qualify for a SEAL tryout you had to be able to do a minimum of eight pull-ups. And that’s after you swim five hundred yards, and do forty-two push-ups and fifty sit-ups. And before you run.

I would never quit. I was certain of that. Everyone I knew back home told me I couldn’t do it. There’s no way; it’s too hard and you’re not a tough guy, you’re too skinny, too slow, and too weak. Those guys will eat you alive. The only person who really believed in me was my dad. Even my mom and siblings talked behind my back about how I’d never make it. Proving them wrong was my motivation. That, and something BUD/S did that was both diabolical and brilliant. When you quit, you have to put your helmet in “the quitter line.” Your helmet has your class number and last name on it. There was no way in hell I was going to put my father’s name in a line of quitters: He was the only one who believed in me.

You can convince your body to do anything. Things are only impossible until someone does them.

Right before Hell Week, Instructor A pulled me aside and said, “You’re about to go to war for the first time and the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears, and everybody you know back home who said you couldn’t do this. Keep your head down and keep moving forward no matter what, never quit, and you’ll be fine.”

Ultimately, SEAL commanders are trying to find the people who can realize that all stress is self-induced. Even when bombs are going off and people are trying to kill you. Worrying doesn’t help keep you alive. In fact, it can get you killed. Can you put that bag of bricks down and forget about it, or are you going to let it ruin your day?

“Nobody ever worked for me. They worked with me.”

The illumination was bad news, so he crept over and started to unscrew the lightbulb. He turned the bulb off just in time because as it became dark again, the woman turned around and headed back for the entryway. She walked right up to Greg, stopped for a second face-to-face with him, then went inside. Greg had his night vision on so he was looking right at her the whole time. She never noticed.

The next day, the locals who’d been terrorized by this al-Qaeda cell for four years realized that all their oppressors were dead. We could see their reaction because we had aircraft circling overhead, watching in case any more bad guys showed up to bury the dead. No more bad guys, just a big celebration. The party got so big, with all these jubilant people drinking juice and dancing in the street, that a newspaper in Baghdad sent a reporter up there. He asked, “Who did this? Who came last night?” The women responded: “Ninjas, and they came with lions.” That was the headline the next day in Baghdad.

One thing I’ve learned since becoming a civilian is that being a Navy SEAL is only part of your life. High school is a part of your life and it’s the most important thing when you’re in it. Then it’s over. For me, for over a decade, being a Navy SEAL was everything. Those hard-as-nails instructors at Coronado and the officers I served under in the years after taught me to meet, and rise above, challenges I wouldn’t have imagined. And my SEAL brothers—they taught me a sense of comradery that I still consider priceless. But to keep growing, we all have to move to the next phase. That’s life.