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

by Robert O'Neill

We all felt the risk. After a while, though, you stop being scared, replacing the fear with a constant awareness that shit can really go sideways.

The instructors take the stress of combat and try to put it in a training environment. Because it’s not actual combat, just training, people can more easily see that the stress is in their head, self-induced. But that’s entry level: 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.