Navy SEAL who shot bin Laden was at war for years

November 15, 2014 12:27

Former Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill, who says he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, played a role in some of the most consequential combat missions of the post-9/11 era, including three depicted in Hollywood movies.

And now he's telling the world about them.

By doing so, O'Neill has almost certainly increased his earning power on the speaking circuit.

He also may have put himself and his family at greater risk.

And he has earned the enmity of some current and former SEALs by violating their code of silence.

But O'Neill, winner of two Silver and five Bronze Stars, makes no apologies for any of that.

In a wide-ranging interview yesterday with The Associated Press, he said he believes the American public has a right to more details about the operation that killed the Al Qaida leader and other important military adventures.

O'Neill's key role in the 2011 bin Laden raid was hardly his only brush with a high-profile mission.

He was on the 2009 mission to rescue the captain of the merchant ship Maersk Alabama, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates. That episode was featured in the Tom Hanks movie "Captain Phillips."

And he was part of the group that helped retrieve Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of a four-man team attacked in 2005 while tracking a Taliban leader in Afghanistan. The Luttrell episode was featured in the 2013 film "Lone Survivor."

Long before those operations, O'Neill came to embody the dramatic transformation of the role of US special operations over the last 13 years.

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