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'No Easy Day': six top revelations from book on the bin Laden mission

The Navy SEAL Team 6 operators hand-picked to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011 had some unwelcome surprises waiting for them as they hit the ground, according to Matt Bissonnette in his controversial book “No Easy Day.” The training that went into the mission included key help from female operators, practical jokes, and an audition of sorts for top US officials, who watched it before deciding whether the Special Operations Forces should go ahead with the raid.

5. SEAL equipment ranges from drug-store staples to custom-built hybrid weapons

  • By Anna Mulrine Staff writer

On the mission to get bin Laden, the SEALs stripped the stealth helicopter of its seats to save on weight, “so we either sat on the floor or on small camp chairs purchased at a local sporting goods store before we left.”

In addition to buying off-the-shelf gear, the SEALs have their own armory. Above the door, Bissonnette reports, is a sign: “You dream, we build.” The custom-built weapons included an M79 grenade-launcher, which was called a pirate gun. SEAL armorers “cut the barrel short and modified the stock into a pistol grip.”

Standard-issue SEAL gear worked well, too. The MP7 submachine gun with a silencer “came in handy during ship boarding” or “in the jungle.” Several times, he adds, “we shot fighters in one room with a suppressed MP7 and their comrades next door didn’t wake up.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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