No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. Due to all the media attention this book was getting, I actually was waiting for No Easy Day to be released to the public. They talked about this how this book was going to reveal sensitive information and how the Pentagon was fighting to have it shelved. Well, it seems that as is often the case with the media, they may have blown everything out of proportion.
This book does not actually reveal any "secrets". Mark Owen (pseudo name) the author has stated right in the first chapter, that most of the information that is in the book was obtained from public sources, as well as conversations that he had. He even goes as far as warning readers looking for secrets that this may not be the book for them. No Easy Day is the story of a United States soldier, that follows him through how he became a Navy Seal and also follows him as they plan the mission on the UBL compound. We get a glimpse into his hopes, dreams, successes, failures, strengths as well as his weaknesses.
I enjoyed how the story is told to us from the view of the seal. I think this was done so as to pull the reader in by telling the story of this very important operation in the history of the United States from the view of an individual who actually experienced it first hand. He was the seal who took the photographs of the scene that have published worldwide, and was also involved in obtaining the DNA sample that was used for verification. Who is Mark Owen? He was a member of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, now more publicly referred to as SEAL Team Six. He has been involved in a lot of high risk missions in the past and was actually one of the team leaders on Operation Neptune Spear in Pakistan that ended with the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. He was present in the room where the terrorist leader was shot dead. Kevin Maurer co-authored this book. He has over 9 years experience in covering the special operations forces. Over that period of time he has been embedded with them from Afghanistan to east Africa, to Iraq and even Haiti.
As an author he has four books under his belt, the majority of them involve the special forces. Unlike other books that have former SEALS as authors this one is different. Instead of promoting and being full of himself, he is modest and actually gives more credit to his teammates. He even goes further, to do something that has been unheard of until now. He gives credit to a woman for the success of this special mission. She was involved in working on this mission for over ten years and she planned every tiny detail. It is not very often that you hear men, let alone SEALS, give credit to women for anything of such high calibre. He is able to portray himself to us as a real person with flaws. He clearly appreciates his teammates but does not go as far as making them appear as super heroes. The book itself was not edited by anyone politically involved with the current White House administration. Although the names, dates and even the times have been altered in order to protect some classified facts, this book is still very accurate. As you read the Osama Bin Laden mission, you feel like you are with the SEALs on the helicopter and throughout the mission. It is well written and action packed. No Easy Day is such an easy read, I was hooked from the beginning and could not put it down. This is one of those books that makes you really appreciate what our soldiers do for us. Appropriately the last pages of the book, are dedicated to giving - to those we have lost.
Available in several formats - start reading No Easy Day By Mark Owen & Kevin Maurer now