In this episode, we welcome Robert O’Neill to the show. He is a retired Navy SEAL that deployed more than a dozen times and took part in over 400 missions across four different theaters of war. During his career, he was a member of SEAL Teams TWO, FOUR, and the legendary Development Group, aka DEVGRU, aka SEAL Team SIX. He was part of many well-known missions including the mission to rescue Marcus Lutrell, the Lone Survivor from Operation Red Wings, and the mission that saved Captain Richard Phillips after he was kidnapped by Somali pirates in 2009. Robert is best known for his participation in one of the most famous ops in US Military history called “Neptune’s Spear” which took place on May 2nd, 2011 at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. On that mission, he fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda that carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After he retired, he wrote a New York Times bestseller about his life and military experience in 2017 called The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior. He’s also the co-author of a new book out this week called The Way Forward: Master Life’s Toughest Battles and Create Your Lasting Legacy, with co-author and retired United States Marine and Medal of Honor recipient, Dakota Meyer. In this interview, we discuss the funny story about how he ended up as a SEAL instead of a Marine, how SEALs are selected to become a member of SEAL Team SIX, what he was doing during the mission to save Captain Phillips, all of the information leading up to the bin Laden raid, what it was like killing the leader of al-Qaeda, how that mission changed his relationships with many of his SEAL brothers, what he thinks about the “code of silence” for Special Operators, his personal faith, how he feels about all of the killing he’s done, the one killing that haunts him most, and much more. Let’s get into it…
Episode notes and links HERE
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices