Book Six of my 2013 Goal

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden -- Mark Owen, Navy SEAL Team Six -- by Save Time Summaries
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary: No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Save Time Summaries is not a full book. This is a summary of the actual book "No Easy Day" much like a "Cliff Note" of the book. It pulled the main points and events from the book to make a short time line of events that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden. It is an easy to understand account of the Navy special mission unit DEVGRU (aka "SEAL Team Six") over the course of about three weeks.

It starts by telling us a little about what it takes to be a DEVGRU member. The discipline and physical strength involved is so extreme that even the some of the best SEAL's are not good enough. The DEVGRU is the unit responsible for counter terrorism an hostage negotiation as well as other classified duties. This mission was comprised of members from different units and they were given the information that the CIA had collected for the past five years. Other people were involved with providing information to the point where they knew what the outside of the Bin Laden's compound looked like but not the inside. Some of the information was from the interrogation of Mohanned al-Qahtani who is thought to be the twentieth hijacker on September 11.

Then it tells of the training and waiting for the final orders from Washington. After they were given the "go" from President Obama they made their move. The accounts given were detailed enough to understand exactly what they were doing and why. Unfortunately their helicopter crashed near Bin Laden's compound which brought a feeling of deja vu to the underground Situation Room of the White House.. A similar helicopter crashed when there was the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980. However, this time the pilot was able to control it somewhat and was able to hover just above the ground. These accounts gave enough details to feel some of the anticipation of the men as well as the concern and anxiety felt by Washington.

Once at the compound there was details of who was found where including Osama Bin Laden. Once the SEAL Team Six killed him and took his body there was a short account of what happened right to his burial at sea. After that, there are a couple of pages of quotes used in the book. My favorite is "The only easy day was yesterday".

If you want to know the events that took place without all the "extra" information in the book "No Easy Day" then this is definitely what you need however if you need some background information or explanations then your better off with the full book. I found the summary very easy to follow and although I wish it did go into a little more detail about who comprised of SEAL Team Six, it was a great summary of events.

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