One of the Best Articles You Will Ever Read

Sarcasmo

A Taste Of Honey Fluff Boy
Mar 28, 2005
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Austin
Marklar
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Fantastic article. Really, really long, but a great read. Peppered with some of the funniest sh*t in print, too.

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/man-who-shot-osama-bin-laden-0313?page=all

For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden tells his story — speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family. And the startling failure of the United States government to help its most experienced and skilled warriors carry on with their lives.

By Phil Bronstein



The Shooter

Published in the March 2013 issue
Phil Bronstein is the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently serves as executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting. This piece was reported in cooperation with CIR.
A correction is appended to the end of this story.


The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care.

It was a mild spring day, April 2012, and our small group, including a few of his friends and family, was shielded from the sun by the patchwork shadows of maple trees. But the Shooter was sweating as he talked about his uncertain future, his plans to leave the Navy and SEAL Team 6.

He stood up several times with an apologetic gripe about the heat, leaving a perspiration stain on the seat-back cushion. He paced. I didn't know him well enough then to tell whether a glass of his favorite single malt, Lagavulin, was making him less or more edgy.

We would end up intimately familiar with each other's lives. We'd have dinners, lots of Scotch. He's played with my kids and my dogs and been a hilarious, engaging gentleman around my wife.

In my yard, the Shooter told his story about joining the Navy at nineteen, after a girl broke his heart. To escape, he almost by accident found himself in a Navy recruiter's office. "He asked me what I was going to do with my life. I told him I wanted to be a sniper.

"He said, 'Hey, we have snipers.'

"I said, 'Seriously, dude. You do not have snipers in the Navy.' But he brought me into his office and it was a pretty sweet deal. I signed up on a whim."

"That's the reason Al Qaeda has been decimated," he joked, "because she broke my f*cking heart."
 
I couldn't help but think that it wasn't long enough. I could read that sh*t all day. Great stuff.

Flying in, we were all just sort of in our own world. My biggest concern was having to piss really bad and then having to get off in a fight needing to pee. We actually had these things made for us, like a combination collapsible dog bowl and diaper. I still have mine; I never used it. I used one of my water bottles instead. I forgot until later that when I shot bin Laden in the face, I had a bottle of piss in my pocket.

It is important to him to stress that no women or children were killed in that raid. He also insists that when it came to interrogation, repetitive questioning and leveraging fear was as aggressive as he'd go. "When we first started the war in Iraq, we were using Metallica music to soften people up before we interrogated them," the Shooter says. "Metallica got wind of this and they said, 'Hey, please don't use our music because we don't want to promote violence.' I thought, Dude, you have an album called Kill 'Em All.

The dead can also be funny, as long as it's not your guys. "In Afghanistan we were cutting away the clothes on this dead dude to see if he had a suicide vest on, only to find that he had a huge dick, down to his knees. From then on, we called him Abu Dujan Holmes.

And then there was the time that the Shooter sh*t himself on a tandem jump with a huge SEAL who outweighed him by sixty pounds. "The godd*mn main chute yanked so hard he slipped two disks in his neck and I filled my socks with human feces. I told him, 'Hey, dude, this is a horrible day.' He said if I went to our reserve chute, 'you're gonna f*cking kill me.' He was that convinced his head was going to rip off his body.

"Okay, so I'm flying this broken chute, sh*tting my pants with this near-dead guy connected to me. And we eat sh*t on the landing. We're lying there and the chute is dragging us across the ground. I hear him go, 'Yeah, that's my last jump for today.' And I said, 'That's cool. Can I borrow your boxers?'
 
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Response to the article from metal band Demon Hunter:

As you can imagine, our inboxes and phones (and those of our representatives) have been flooded with messages asking us how we feel about the Esquire article on the raid that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice that began circulating yesterday. Specifically, the person identified in the story as "The Shooter" said that Seal Team 6 wore the Demon Hunter emblem on their uniforms and "I wore it when I blasted Bin Laden."

Over the years, we have been overwhelmed by the personal (and unofficial) emails and letters we've received from members of the US military. We have been humbled and honored by the troops who've told us our music has offered them some comfort while overseas, while missing loved ones, while doing what they do best in order to keep America safe and protect the freedoms we enjoy. We've met many servicemen and women at our shows and they've shared their stories with us in person, as well. We wrote "The Soldier's Song" back in 2005 to pay tribute to these folks who've reached out to us. We included one such veteran among the Demon Hunter fans we profiled in our documentary film, 45 Days.

We have seen our symbol, a demon skull with a bullet hole in its forehead, tattooed on fans around the world. We've seen it made into sculptures, painted onto motorcycles, even spray-painted onto tanks and military planes. We often post these pictures on our Facebook page when we receive them. One such email, a few years ago, came from a special operations team who had crafted homemade Demon Hunter patches and put them on their uniforms. They asked us if it was OK if they did this and we of course told them "YES" because we are unapologetic supporters of our troops. In the last 24 hours, we have come to believe this team who contacted us a few years ago must have been Seal Team 6.

As for the talk about enhanced interrogation techniques that has sprung up in the media in the last 24 hours surrounding this story, we feel that it is an unnecessary distraction. It's been widely reported for years that heavy metal music has sometimes been used in these situations. We have no specific knowledge of our music being used for this, nor have we ever volunteered it to be used as such, nor are we commenting on it beyond that. The debate about enhanced interrogation techniques is for politicians, military intelligence, pundits and others of the like to have.

The members of Seal Team 6 and The Shooter are American heroes who deserve our support. We were among the Americans and people around the world abroad who supported the bringing to justice of one of the biggest mass murderers in history, who planned and executed some of the most horrific acts imaginable. All of the military who risk their lives to protect our freedoms earn our respect each and every single day. We are honored, humbled and blessed that Demon Hunter was of any support or comfort to Seal Team 6 or anyone in the US military at any time.

-- DEMON HUNTER
 
Respect to the dude for not being a fucking douchebag like "Mark Owen". Goddamn glory hound.

Also, fuck yes @ President Obama's response to "what do we do if they get captured by the pakistani army"

Hell no. My guys are not surrendering. What do we need to rain hell on the Pakistani military?
 
Response to the article from metal band Demon Hunter:

As you can imagine, our inboxes and phones (and those of our representatives) have been flooded with messages asking us how we feel about the Esquire article on the raid that brought Osama Bin Laden to justice that began circulating yesterday. Specifically, the person identified in the story as "The Shooter" said that Seal Team 6 wore the Demon Hunter emblem on their uniforms and "I wore it when I blasted Bin Laden."

Over the years, we have been overwhelmed by the personal (and unofficial) emails and letters we've received from members of the US military. We have been humbled and honored by the troops who've told us our music has offered them some comfort while overseas, while missing loved ones, while doing what they do best in order to keep America safe and protect the freedoms we enjoy. We've met many servicemen and women at our shows and they've shared their stories with us in person, as well. We wrote "The Soldier's Song" back in 2005 to pay tribute to these folks who've reached out to us. We included one such veteran among the Demon Hunter fans we profiled in our documentary film, 45 Days.

We have seen our symbol, a demon skull with a bullet hole in its forehead, tattooed on fans around the world. We've seen it made into sculptures, painted onto motorcycles, even spray-painted onto tanks and military planes. We often post these pictures on our Facebook page when we receive them. One such email, a few years ago, came from a special operations team who had crafted homemade Demon Hunter patches and put them on their uniforms. They asked us if it was OK if they did this and we of course told them "YES" because we are unapologetic supporters of our troops. In the last 24 hours, we have come to believe this team who contacted us a few years ago must have been Seal Team 6.

As for the talk about enhanced interrogation techniques that has sprung up in the media in the last 24 hours surrounding this story, we feel that it is an unnecessary distraction. It's been widely reported for years that heavy metal music has sometimes been used in these situations. We have no specific knowledge of our music being used for this, nor have we ever volunteered it to be used as such, nor are we commenting on it beyond that. The debate about enhanced interrogation techniques is for politicians, military intelligence, pundits and others of the like to have.

The members of Seal Team 6 and The Shooter are American heroes who deserve our support. We were among the Americans and people around the world abroad who supported the bringing to justice of one of the biggest mass murderers in history, who planned and executed some of the most horrific acts imaginable. All of the military who risk their lives to protect our freedoms earn our respect each and every single day. We are honored, humbled and blessed that Demon Hunter was of any support or comfort to Seal Team 6 or anyone in the US military at any time.

-- DEMON HUNTER
This made me want to look up and listen to Demon Hunter
 
I'm such a homo. I welled up a couple of times, like when he was talking about saying good-bye to his family for the last time. Much love to those guys going in KNOWING they were gonna die.
 
As much as I enjoyed reading some of that article, I still struggle to understand why it was so important to murder this one guy and why we celebrate killing anyone. I know it's a controversial viewpoint and I'm gonna take a lot of shit for it, but I just can't get behind the idea. Like that Chris Kyle guy. The only thing I know about him is that he shot and killed 160 people and then he got shot and killed. I'm not sure how this is anything to be proud of. I get that he probably did it to save the lives of his buddies and that's fine, but I'm not sure I'd be proud of killing anyone even if it was to save my family. Relieved maybe, but not proud of taking a life. We didn't kill Bin Laden to save lives though. It's not like anyone is deluded enough to believe that it weakened the organization he headed up or made terrorists think twice about what they were doing.

I do think these soldiers should be treated better by the country they return to though. They carry out missions because someone tells them to and then they come home and wind up miserable and ruined.
 
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Killing him was symbolic, he was responsible for murdering all those civilians in NYC. Eliminating that kind of evil from the world is very much worth celebrating IMO.
 
Killing him was symbolic, he was responsible for murdering all those civilians in NYC. Eliminating that kind of evil from the world is very much worth celebrating IMO.

I feel like killing someone because they killed someone makes us the same. And it's not like we haven't also killed innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Should someone come into the homes of those unfortunate soldiers and kill them in their bed clothes? Evil begets evil. I agree he wasn't a good guy and he needed to be held responsible for his crimes, but I don't see how killing him or anyone else makes any of the families that lost loved ones feel any better.
 
As much as I enjoyed reading some of that article, I still struggle to understand why it was so important to murder this one guy and why we celebrate killing anyone. I know it's a controversial viewpoint and I'm gonna take a lot of shit for it, but I just can't get behind the idea. Like that Chris Kyle guy. The only thing I know about him is that he shot and killed 160 people and then he got shot and killed. I'm not sure how this is anything to be proud of. I get that he probably did it to save the lives of his buddies and that's fine, but I'm not sure I'd be proud of killing anyone even if it was to save my family. Relieved maybe, but not proud of taking a life. We didn't kill Bin Laden to save lives though. It's not like anyone is deluded enough to believe that it weakened the organization he headed up or made terrorists think twice about what they were doing.

I do think these soldiers should be treated better by the country they return to though. They carry out missions because someone tells them to and then they come home and wind up miserable and ruined.

I challenge that we didn't save any lives. No better recruiting agent than the fact that we have OBL on trial in Guantanamo. Instead, the 'great man' went out with a pretty undramatic whimper.
 
I feel like killing someone because they killed someone makes us the same. And it's not like we haven't also killed innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. Should someone come into the homes of those unfortunate soldiers and kill them in their bed clothes? Evil begets evil. I agree he wasn't a good guy and he needed to be held responsible for his crimes, but I don't see how killing him or anyone else makes any of the families that lost loved ones feel any better.

We didn't purposely kill civilians, they are a casualty of war. Or soldiers who have purposely killed civilians have been put on trial and dealt with appropriately.

Osama targeted civilians and openly said he wanted us to all die. Do you not do anything and continue letting hijackers fly into buildings?

And what's this talk about being a better person for not killing? I say the better societies get rid of the trash, the worse societies live with the trash.
 
also, you know, first hand account from someone who was there saying he was moving in the direction of an ak and using a human shield. That sounds like a threat to me.

If he was on his knees with his hands on his head surrendering, i doubt he would have been shot.
 
As much as I enjoyed reading some of that article, I still struggle to understand why it was so important to murder this one guy and why we celebrate killing anyone. I know it's a controversial viewpoint and I'm gonna take a lot of sh*t for it, but I just can't get behind the idea. Like that Chris Kyle guy. The only thing I know about him is that he shot and killed 160 people and then he got shot and killed. I'm not sure how this is anything to be proud of. I get that he probably did it to save the lives of his buddies and that's fine, but I'm not sure I'd be proud of killing anyone even if it was to save my family. Relieved maybe, but not proud of taking a life. We didn't kill Bin Laden to save lives though. It's not like anyone is deluded enough to believe that it weakened the organization he headed up or made terrorists think twice about what they were doing.

I do think these soldiers should be treated better by the country they return to though. They carry out missions because someone tells them to and then they come home and wind up miserable and ruined.

It's called warfare.

In war the goal is to wipe your enemy off the face of the earth before they do it to you. It's brutal and strategic and necessary, because people are disgusting, violent animals. Some of those people we choose to engage in combat and destroy. We've been doing it for thousands of years. Face it: there are millions of people in this world who deserve to die at the end of a rifle or bayonet. Their sole purpose in life to abuse, destroy, kill, manipulate, exploit, and create chaos. They contribute nothing to society, and nothing to the virtues of love and peace. Some are wicked, some are merely disenfranchised or brainwashed, but all have made a choice.

Go to Bestgore.com and watch the soul crushing videos of cartel members and insurgents torturing and slaughtering people. You will feel your humanity die as you witness what we are capable of. Watch them slit the throats of men, women, and children and then laugh as they twitch and die. Watch and hear the horror and the violence with your own eyes and ears and then tell me that what we are doing to these f*ckers around the world is wrong. Mercy and compassion are good traits in general and they will serve you well in life, but they simply aren't practical ways to trim the fat off the world. Show those monsters mercy and they will simply kill you while smiling. Every single time.

So we have guys like Shooter and Chris Kyle who go out on missions to find and destroy these people. Sometimes they make mistakes, and innocent people die. Sometimes they make mistakes and they die. But most of the time they strike with accuracy and precision and make the world a slightly better place. That's what we celebrate. Not only one less piece of sh*t who would happily slit your larynx and listen to you wheeze, but the brotherhood of these guys who do what very few others would have the guts to do. Whether you agree with war or not, or the stories that took us to Afghanistan and Iraq in the first place, these dudes are the closest things to superheroes we've got. They have devastated the numbers of useless pieces of filth in the world. They will never win, because new ones are born each day, but they will strike where needed.

Chris Kyle didn't just "shoot 160 people." That watered down statement leaves a lot of room for interpretation. He exterminated enemy combatants on a battlefield. Over and over. People who made the decision to kill him and his teammates in order to prevent them from doing their jobs. And their jobs are not in question. Navy SEALs are not sent into situations willy nilly by some officer somewhere who wants to shoot a place up. There's no ambiguity in their placement or usage. They are extremely expensive assets and their tasks are performed surgically. Their goals are clear, their intelligence reliable, and they usually prevent the deaths of lots and lots of people. We celebrate that.

I disagree about the motives for killing Bin Laden, at least in part. Our motives, in my opinion, were twofold. Vengeance, and justice. Bin Laden orchestrated some of the most spectacular and guesome attacks on civilian populations this world has ever seen. His organization wreaked havoc on American and Iraqi soil. Offshoots of his organization are responsible for the deaths of thousands. And you have no idea what he is or isn't capable of at any given time. Is he still in charge? What are his assets and resources? Who does he communicate with? It's probable that in the last few years of his life his direct control and influence were minimized by his paranoia. He probably feared discovery and capture more than he wanted to wage war, and he probably valued his family time. Remaining out of the limelight was certainly his decision. But that doesn't mean we forgot or stopped caring about the carnage of the preceding decade. And it doesn't mean that killing him wasn't motivated by a desire to put an end to his schemes and potential danger once and for all. Do you want to wait for him to get ahold of a nuke, or do you want to follow up on every single lead from here to forever in order to kill the motherf*cker?

Lastly, there is consensus from virtually everywhere, including insurgents themselves, that we have more than significantly disrupted his organization. We consistently kill every decision making head that rears up, regardless where it is. We have terminated every single one of his top operatives. The organization itself may never go away, but in recent years it has become merely symbolic, its name used by cells around the world for nothing more than recognition and shock value. Its efficacy has been gravely wounded. It will be back, or some other group will take its place atop the list of cultural fear, and new SEALs will fight it. And we will celebrate them too.
 
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