Re: Killing bin Laden. 60 minutes Seal Team 6 member intervi
interference said:
bluecoconuts said:
His story is a bit different than the shooter who actually killed Bin Laden's story is. Same as his book, a bunch of Team 6 guys are really pissed about that as well.
Yeah, I'd really like to hear a critique of his story by someone who has had ths kind of military front-line experience. As a novice, some things that I thought were odd while listening to the story ...
- It didn't seem that the team had discussed the contingency of a helo crash landing, which seems to me to be something that would have been likely given the extremely tight landing area and the expected night conditions.
- Less than 15mins had passed since they crash landed, and he had already:
(i) experienced one firefight at the outer residence on the ground floor, containing that area by going inside and exchanging words with the women and children inside;
(ii) joined the team who moved directly inside the main residence clearing floor-by-foor, somehow making his way to 2nd position as they moved-up the stairs to the 3rd floor.
It just doesn't make sense to me that someone responsible for containing the outer residence would be able to rejoin the team inside and make his way to 2nd position before that team travelled up the staircase.
- That there was a misunderstanding regarding what assest to prepare for explosives, with the demolition expert spending time setting charges around the home. Wouldn't the conditions for demolition have been discussed during training and well known before the night?
Anyway, if we have any military here who can shed some light, I'd appreciate hearing your inisghts.
When I was in the military, these types of operations, specifically raids, were my unit's specialty.
At that level everyone knows what to do in a chopper crash. Of course nobody sits there and talks about it in the bird (like in that Zero Dark Thirty movie), but the pilot went over really quickly about what he'd do, and that's what he attempted to do. At the Special Operations level of the military, guys are really good at thinking on their feet and adapting, and they did that just fine. The Night Stalker who piloted the bird did an amazing job on putting the bird down as good as possible. Night Stalkers are also experts at flying in the dark (hence Night Stalkers) these are the best helicopter pilots in the world, and nobody comes close. I've flown on birds with these guys and I'll tell you when people say they're good they're not kidding. I've got stories about how mind blowing their abilities are, as does pretty much everyone who's worked with them. They covered all aspects of what to do if something happens, sometimes there's nothing that can be done however.
Now as for point 1, there was a firefight, in the outer area of the compound, and that was his teams assignment, so I would expect him to be there. His team was then to start taking the building from the ground up. The team didn't really change their approach much from the bird going down. Instead of fast roping to the front they crashed in the courtyard and walked the few meters to where they would have repelled anyway, and then continued the mission. The only difference was that the second chopper put everyone down outside the compound instead of the dog team outside and the other half on the roof.
Point 2 is just fine as well, because as teams move through the area they peal off and continue searching. In raids where there are multiple rooms. Because there's a HVT on the third floor you can't stop and take your time. However you can't skip rooms because there can be a threat and you don't want them getting you from the rear. So as other team members pealed off to secure areas, others continued to move on.
For the explosives, I'll likely have to rewatch to see exactly what he said, but I do know that everyone on the team will carry some type of breaching explosive. They also have a breacher who carries extra and specific things for breaching doors. Nobody had any idea what the layout was inside of the building, they assumed it was all wired to blow though (most assumed they wouldn't survive) and they didn't know there were fake doors. So there would be a little bit of confusion there naturally. What type of breach to use and when to use it is determined on the ground by the men on the spot most of the time, that's just part of the job. Sometimes you get thrown a curve ball, it's happened to my unit before, it's just part of these things really.
The main difference from my understanding, is that his account glosses over the role of the man who first shot Bin Laden. Again I'll have to watch again but it seemed like he acts like he was right there in the door way to kill him, as if he was the first man in. The first man in actually tackled a woman thinking that she was a suicide bomber, and the second man in, (who was normally a sniper) shot Bin Laden in the head. Then others came in and shot him again just to do it. Bissonnette doesn't really talk about the first shooter's job in the entire thing, when he played a pretty big part in the raid obviously. In fact given that he was the one who shot Bin Laden (used three rounds the entire raid) the military was sure that he was going to write a book.. But he didn't. The shooter (who doesn't give his name, nor names anyone else) talked about the raid a bit, and there were a few differences in Bissonnette's version. Other SEALS are pissed that Bissonnette essentially removes the shooter's role in it, seemingly to more glorify his own role. There's also the unwritten rule that you don't talk about these things nor do you try to profit from them. When you do these types of operations it's not supposed to be about making money. So guys get a little ticked when someone tries to do that.
So overall Bissonnette is pretty accurate from what I can tell. But when it comes down to the final moments, he kinds of plays around a bit. He may have embellished the 'firefight' a little as well, talking about returning fire. Now, I don't know for sure of course, but I know when I took part on HVT raids, there wasn't a single man who ever shot blindly. Most would shoot less than 10 rounds if any at all, and it was only at a target. Missing in these types of raids is usually rare. But again I wasn't there, so I don't know what went down.
From my understanding SEALS are pissed that Bissonnette is just glossing over the man who actually shot Bin Laden dead, and for trying to get some fame from it. Kind of a middle finger to everyone else.
