Seals Shouldn't Write Books

I bought the book, “No Easy Day” just after it was published about a year after the death of Osama bin Laden (OBL).  I never read it.   I wanted a trophy to commemorate the death of the cowardly schwein-hund and buying this book just seemed right. Uncertainty about his death in the caves of Tora Bora was suspected but wasn't a certainty.  Now it was no longer a maybe, anymore, the rat bastard was dead. Tracked by a tenacious analyst at US Intelligence she was 100% certain, the tall, lanky, man who walked the walled compound in Abbottabad, in white flowing robes was OBL. She was 100% right.  The world knew OBL was now erased from the planet by the force of the United States and sent to his resting place for the deck of the USS Carl Vinson at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. So when the book arrived, I just put it on the shelf and forgot about it.  I wasn’t ready.  

Also, controversy swirled in the media about the publication of the book by the Navy Seal who wrote it under the pseudonym Mark Owen (his real name is known). I remember being pissed off at the time, since I don’t believe Owen should have spoken up.  I assumed it probably contained secrets.  And as quiet professionals, members of our special forces have a code of conduct that prohibits them from taking credit or speaking about events and the things they do. And of course they should never write books.  More controversy over the actual events also ensued related to conflicting accounts of what actually happened.  I wasn’t ready to sift through any of the controversy at the time. We got OBL.  That was the important part.  The facts could wait, so the book sat on the shelf collecting dust for over a decade.

Now, with  all that time having elapsed since publication, I pulled the book down and read it cover to cover in just a few hours.  I cried genuine tears of redemption when I read about OBL being put to death by the assault team leader’s Heckler & Koch 417 on his third floor lair on that dark night in Pakistan on May 1st, 2011.  Owen claims he wrote the book to set the record straight and that the story of this mission belongs to all of us.  We the people(my words). The great Country of people forever harmed by Bin Laden’s horrific attacks on Sept 11th, 2001.  In hindsight, I believe Owen was absolutely right.  My tears are in agreement with him and I’m glad he went on the record with this story.  In doing so he took great risk and personal cost to his reputation, his integrity, and his security.  He knew that at the time he wrote it, but persisted, since to him the story was much larger than himself (his words), and history should judge his decision to be the right one.  Occasionally, words should be spoken.  Even the commanding General, McRaven, has written a book (several in fact) about his life in special forces.

With regard to Owen’s book, I noticed a lot of things in his story, but the most important fact is that the pages he has written for us contain no secrets--as I had presumed there would be.   In many books like this, secrets are in the press, they are out there. We neither confirm or deny them when we see them.  Sometimes they get redacted, sometimes they sneak in, or, if you happen to already have some insider knowledge, you can read between the lines.  Owens was meticulously aware of the line where secrets can be inadvertently revealed, and he was extremely cautious in what he wrote. In my opinion he never crossed a line.  Which means, for the record, Owen didn’t violate security, he only violated the code of being a quiet professional.  None of this makes it less of a read.   He tells the story of his life extremely well.  It all makes sense and is easy to read.  It’s conversational in tone, and when the mission starts, I found it impossible to put down.  

As I now reflect on the controversy surrounding this book, and read other articles and accounts in the press.  It appears Owen’s has portrayed the events of that night more accurately than most. Whether it was his personality or attention to detail, he was a scribe.  Most people do not have the capacity to write the story in their head as events unfurl. Natural writers have a journalistic mindset, facts and happenings, just write themselves into your memory as a sort of natural mnemonic.  To me, when a mindset such as Owen’s, tells the story from their memory, it is bound to be more accurate.  That’s not completely true, but on the whole they will tell a more accurate rendering.  Also, writers write.  It would have been impossible to keep a guy like Owens from writing down what was in his head.

My recommendation is to read this book.  Every American should close this chapter of our lives knowing OBL was capped.  It’s redemptive and healing. The book does not reveal secrets, despite the controversy.  The secrets of this operation existed ahead of the op.  That fact that we knew where OBL was, the importance to keep the planning under wraps until execution, and the politics surrounding going into Pakistan. All of which hit the light of day, the next day.  With regard to his early life, and training to be a SEAL, this material is all well known and continuously covered by books and movies alike.  To get his actual perspective as he worked through the training programs is important.  His perspectives and insights, while not universal, and unique by person, are not that uncommon and a general picture of the mental and physical stamina necessary to be a part of an elite fighting force. Also, the idea, that you can plan to be on the team to take out the most notorious criminal in the world, and that circumstance and luck (being in the right place at the right time) but also properly trained to be in that situation, is abundantly clear.  I would not have wanted to be the guy, in the right place, at the right time, when the Black Hawk rotors lost their lift and the pilot was forced to crash  into the compound…yet the mission succeeded. The planning and the training paid off.  Five stars for a book every American should read.  Deduct one star because SEAL’s shouldn’t write books.  But I’m glad he did.