The former US Navy SEAL who fatally shot Osama bin Laden has only one regret: the al Qaeda monster he killed with three shots to the head was buried at sea. \u201cI would have hung him from a bridge in New York City,\u201d and let the locals deal with him, Robert O\u2019Neill told The Post. Here, the retired Team Six member offers The Post\u2019s David Spector a riveting blow-by-blow account of Operation Neptune Spear, which unfolded 15 years ago today at bin Laden\u2019s secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He also reveals the heroic operators\u2019 9\/11 motivations. \u201cWe were going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning, then an hour later . . . jumped out of the World Trade Center, pressing down her skirt as her last act of human decency. She was never supposed to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n
We first found out about the top-secret mission three weeks before it was executed. The first thing they said was, \u201cThis is not a drill, this is real.\u201d<\/p>\n
All they told us was we found a thing in a house in a bowl in this mountain range, and you\u2019re going to go get this thing and bring it back. What is this thing? Well, we can\u2019t tell you. Which country? Can\u2019t tell you. How are we getting there? Can\u2019t tell you. How much air support? None. <\/p>\n
Robert O\u2019Neill recounted the heart-pounding raid where he killed 9\/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden minute by minute. mchooyah\/Instagram<\/p>\n
Hearing that was actually a relief because that was our first answer.<\/p>\n
They said on a Friday, go home and be with your kids, and come back Sunday for a read-in. I asked, \u201cWho\u2019s going to be at the read-in?\u201d It was the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of the Navy. <\/p>\n
We\u2019re like, \u201cWhat in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n
The read-in was in a room behind armed guards at the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina. The SEALs were told, \u201cThis is as close as we\u2019ve come to Osama Bin Laden.\u201d<\/p>\n
We came up with the perfect plan and rehearsed it day and night on mockups of the exterior of Bin Laden\u2019s house. We were introduced to some Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that I don\u2019t think even President Obama knew about. Helicopters would pick us up; We\u2019d drop down on ropes and land on the roof. <\/p>\n
We\u2019d practice different scenarios: what if a car leaves, what if we get separated, what if we\u2019re trapped outside? My experience in Iraq was the ultimate preparation. In training, you might talk about it and forget it, but when somebody gets shot, that\u2019s written in blood. <\/p>\n
Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan 15 years ago today. nypost<\/p>\n
One day my boss asks, \u201cWhat is the worst thing that could go wrong?\u201d The youngest guy said, \u201cThe helicopter could crash on bin Laden\u2019s front yard.\u201d We looked at him like, \u201cWhy did you jinx us?\u201d Sure enough, that\u2019s what happened.<\/p>\n
In the world of special operations, a casual worry isn\u2019t just a jinx \u2014 it can be a blueprint for how to handle chaos.<\/p>\n
This would be a one-way mission. You\u2019re not afraid you\u2019re gonna die, but you\u2019re prepared for death. We had the four best pilots in the world, but they\u2019d only flown these choppers for maybe a week. One of the younger guys pulled me aside and said, \u201cDon\u2019t get this wrong, I\u2019m definitely going, but if we know we\u2019re going to die, can we discuss why we\u2019re going?\u201d<\/p>\n
The first helicopter crashed, complicating the mission. REUTERS<\/p>\n
We all talked about it. We weren\u2019t going for the fame or the reward. We were going after bin Laden for the first Americans who were forced to fight al Qaeda, to the death, toe to toe, on a Tuesday morning: the passengers on Flight 93.<\/p>\n
You knew that any one of us could pull ourselves out and live for another 50 years. But when you\u2019re on your deathbed, if you could give every single day back for one shot at this motherf\u2013ker . . . <\/p>\n
The hardest part is telling your kids goodbye, because death is coming. The day I shipped off, my 3-year-old daughter packed a Hello Kitty suitcase and said, \u201cWhen you get home, you\u2019re taking me on vacation.\u201d I had to rip the scab off, give her a kiss and look her in the eyes one last time, fully believing I wasn\u2019t going to come back. That\u2019s the hard part. My poor [former] wife had no idea where I was going.<\/p>\n
This undated artist rendering handout provided by the CIA shows the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan where American forces in Pakistan killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. AP<\/p>\n
We waited at a base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, for a green light. There was another SEAL team there who didn\u2019t get the mission because if they changed their behaviors, it might tip the enemy off.<\/p>\n
We finally got the green light.<\/p>\n
We wanted zero percent illumination. We wanted it completely dark because we\u2019re good in the dark. We went on Sunday. We don\u2019t know if our stealth technology works; it\u2019s a 90-minute flight into Abbottabad, and Pakistan could shoot us down.<\/p>\n
President Obama and his advisers pack a room to watch as the mission to take out bin Laden unfolded. Getty Images<\/p>\n
The lead CIA analyst who found bin Laden was this badass, no-nonsense woman. She walked us through how she found him and what we could expect when we got to his compound in minute detail. We knew there would be a gunfight \u2014 if anybody is going to martyr his entire family, it\u2019s bin Laden.<\/p>\n
If we got caught, I had one rule: I was saving one bullet for myself. I\u2019m not going to a Pakistani prison. There was some concern that the Pakistani police would arrive. We told the White House we didn\u2019t want to kill any beat cops.<\/p>\n
We were told President Obama said to [then-three-star Admiral William] McRaven, \u201cHow much firepower do you need to rain hell on Pakistan? My men are not surrendering to the Pakistani police.\u201d<\/p>\n
Residents of Abbottabad, Pakistan, said they believed the two men who were hiding Osama bin Laden were either smugglers or gold merchants. Tribune News Service via Getty Images<\/p>\n
That was some old school Chicago hardball politics right there.<\/p>\n
The whole thing happened in the span of nine minutes. We landed at 12:30 a.m. The first helicopter went down. We knew something happened and we decided to get out and figure it out.<\/p>\n
I remember looking up over a 20-foot wall, seeing the top of bin Laden\u2019s house. I remember thinking calmly, \u201cWell, I guess we start the war from here.\u201d Off to my left, there\u2019s a double door. Another SEAL put a 7-foot charge on the door to blast it. He blasted the door, it opened, but there was another brick wall behind it. \u201cS\u2013t, that\u2019s a fake door,\u201d I thought. He\u2019s in there. <\/p>\n
We had to cross the front of his house. We were going to blast the garage open, but before we could, it opened and a glove I recognized gave me a thumbs up. I walk past the guys in the garage wearing American flag patches, thinking \u201cWho the f\u2013k are these guys?\u201d They\u2019re the pilots from the other helicopter that went down.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill discovered Opium underneath bin Laden\u2019s bed. AP<\/p>\n
We get into the house, and there\u2019s a long hallway. The first thing I did was hop into the room on the right. Nobody said a word. We work quiet and read off each other. We think there should be bombs in the house. I see guys ahead of me moving children to safety.<\/p>\n
Down the long hallway there was a stairwell. The CIA analyst said [Osama\u2019s adult son] Khalid Bin Laden would definitely be on it and if you can ace him, you get a shot at the big guy. One of my friends is trying to breach a barricaded door. The door blows and we go up. Khalid is there, just like the woman said. The guy in front whispered \u201cCome here\u201d to him in Arabic and Urdu. It confused him; he came out with his gun and got blasted.<\/p>\n
We got to the second floor. Everyone split off to clear rooms. A SEAL is pointing to the last set of stairs. On top of the stairs is a curtain where the door should be. I went up with him as the number two man. He saw people moving behind the curtain. We thought they were suicide bombers. I look down at my shoes and I remember thinking, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m going to blow up now, I\u2019m going to see what that feels like, and I\u2019m tired of thinking about it. Let\u2019s go.\u201d <\/p>\n
People walk past Osama Bin Laden\u2019s compound, where he was killed during a raid by US special forces, on May 3, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Getty Images<\/p>\n
We went through that curtain and he moved them out of the way. They turned out to be Bin Laden\u2019s wives.<\/p>\n
He turned left and I turned right and there was bin Laden standing there, three feet away. <\/p>\n
I recognized him immediately. I was impressed with how skinny he was. His beard was sort of gray. His hands were on his wife Amal\u2019s shoulders. I took it as a threat; he could blow himself up. <\/p>\n
At SEAL Team Six, we shoot you twice in the head right away. I shot him twice and shot him again with my H&K 416. He crumpled on the foot of his bed. <\/p>\n
I just shot Bin Laden \u2014 like what the f\u2013k? Everything I had ever known, everything I planned, just changed drastically.<\/p>\n
Bin Laden was hiding behind his wife when O\u2019Neill spotted him. AP<\/p>\n
Now I know I need to move Amal back and shield her with my body because other guys are coming in. As I\u2019m moving her, his 2-year-old son Hussain was standing there. We\u2019re all fathers. My thought was, \u201cWhy did he have to see this?\u201d I move him back and then I turn around.<\/p>\n
Our rules are, if you kill it you own it. I have to clean his face, hold his head together and take a picture. One of my guys asks, \u201cHey, are you good bro?\u201d I said, \u201cYes, what do we do now?\u201d He said go find the computers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just killed Osama bin Laden, your life is about to f\u2013king change, now get back to work,\u201d he told me. <\/p>\n
That snaps me out of it.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t blow up. We might make it home.<\/p>\n
They rehearsed the raid meticulously in the days leading up to the mission. DigitalGlobe via Getty Images<\/p>\n
I ran into [fellow SEAL and the team\u2019s dog handler] Will Chesney. I told him, \u201cI think I just shot that f\u2013ker in the face.\u201d We hear on the radio \u201cFor God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.\u201d Geronimo was the code word to signify bin Laden had been killed. We high-fived.<\/p>\n
We found offices, computer towers, floppy discs and CDs. They sent two guys out to blow up the crashed helicopter. I went back to the third floor; they already put bin Laden in the body bag. Everyone\u2019s starting to realize we might see our homes again. We get in the helicopter.<\/p>\n
Now we gotta live for 90 minutes. If I make it that long, I get to see my kids again.<\/p>\n
Pakistan definitely scrambled F-16s. . . . Ten minutes go by, then 20, now it\u2019s 30. You can hear the helicopter really picking up speed. We hit 60 minutes. S\u2013t, it\u2019s been 80 minutes. All we had to do is cross into Afghanistan and we live.<\/p>\n
The pilot came on the radio and said, in his monotone voice, \u201cAll right gentleman, for the first time in your lives, you\u2019re going to be happy to hear this: Welcome to Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former US Navy SEAL who fatally shot Osama bin Laden has only one regret: the al Qaeda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29880,41769,9,11,10,85934,85935,58],"class_list":["post-217883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-afghanistan","tag-al-qaeda","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-robert-oneill","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}