by Owen, Mark
After we rehearsed the best-case scenario, we started running through the contingencies. Instead of roping into the courtyard, we landed outside the walls and raided the compound from there. We also practiced tracking down squirters if someone ran from the target before the assault.
Every single contingency was practiced to the point where we were tired of it. We had never trained this much for a particular objective before in our lives, but it was important. The mission was straightforward, but the extra preparation helped us mesh, since we’d been drawn from different teams.
After the last rehearsals, we all met in the operations center. Jay was there with an update.
“We’re headed home and then Monday we head out west for another week of training and a full mission profile,” he said.
I raised my hand.
“Do we have any official word if this thing is approved yet or not?” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “Still waiting on Washington.”
I looked at Walt. His eyes rolled. It was the “hurry up and wait” routine we had experienced with the Captain Phillips operation.
“My money says we don’t launch,” Walt said as we left.
We flew out to our training site early Monday. On Thursday, almost two weeks after we got the initial tasking, we had our dress rehearsal.
The entire team and all the planners gathered in a massive hangar at the base. On the floor was a map of eastern Afghanistan. A group of VIPs, headlined by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Admiral Eric Olson, commander of the Special Operations Command in Tampa and a former DEVGRU commander, sat in stands near the map with Vice Admiral Bill McRaven.
McRaven has commanded at every level within the special operations community, including DEVGRU. He impressed me. McRaven, the three-star admiral atop the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), was tall, lean, and clean-cut. Most admirals look old or out of shape, but McRaven looked like he could still get the job done. He knew how to work his level and had a good handle on the politics in D.C.
We were about to execute what was called a “rock drill,” and everything from helicopter flight paths to the mock-up of the compound was present on the floor. A narrator reading off a script started the hour-and-a-half-long brief on Operation Neptune Spear.
The pilots spoke first. They walked everyone through the flight path from Jalalabad to the compound in Abbottabad. They talked about the radio calls as well as any contingencies that might arise in flight.
Finally, each assault team leader got up and briefed their individual tasks.
“My team will fast-rope from Chalk One into the courtyard, we’ll clear and secure C1, then backfill the rest of the teams in A1,” I said.
Most of the questions from the VIPs focused on the perimeter team. There were a lot of concerns about how our external security would handle onlookers.
“What is your plan if you’re confronted by local police or military?” they asked the team leader.
“Sir, we will de-escalate if at all possible,” he said. “First using the interpreter, and then using the dog, and then visible lasers. As a last resort we will use force.”
Toward the end, a question was raised about whether or not this was a kill mission. A lawyer from either the Department of Defense or the White House made it clear this wasn’t an assassination.
“If he is naked with his hands up, you’re not going to engage him,” he told us. “I am not going to tell you how to do your job. What we’re saying is if he does not pose a threat, you will detain him.”
After the brief, we loaded up into the helicopters and took off for one final run-through. We were going to assault a mock compound so the VIPs could watch. It was the final hurdle. I knew we had to do it, but it felt strange to be watched like this. It felt like we were in a fish bowl. We all agreed if jumping through these hoops was going to help us get approval, the hassle was worth it.
One minute from the target, the crew chief threw open the door and I swung my legs out.
Grabbing the rope, I could see some VIPs near the target staring up at us with night vision goggles. As the helicopter started its hover over our fast-rope location, the rotors kicked up a maelstrom of rocks and dust, blasting the VIPs and forcing them to run in the opposite direction. I chuckled as I watched a few of the women stagger away on their heels.
The rehearsal went off without an issue on our end.
“So, you think we’ll get the go-ahead?” Charlie asked me after the dress rehearsal.
“Dude, I’ve got no clue,” I said. “I’m not holding my breath.”
The flight back the next day was low-key. We were ready to go. There was nothing we could do now but wait.
CHAPTER 11
Killing Time
The sun was fading as I flashed my ID card to the guard at our base in Virginia Beach. He saw my decal as I pulled closer and waved me through. I passed a long line of cars heading home for the day.
I was a few hours early for our flight, but I was tired of waiting. It had been a long week at home. When we are home too long, we get antsy. It was Easter, and I called my parents to check in. We caught up, but I couldn’t tell them what I was really doing. While the rest of America was coloring Easter eggs, we were sitting on the biggest secret of our lives.
After the dress rehearsal out west, it all came down to the politicians in Washington making a decision. We made one more trip to North Carolina to conduct a last walk-through of the compound, before returning to find out we’d finally gotten orders to move forward and stage in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
We were all still very skeptical. Nobody was jumping up and down; everybody digested the news in their own way and went about their business. At least we were one step closer to actually roping into the compound.
I parked my truck and grabbed my backpack. I could see some of my teammates walking toward the headquarters. I’m sure we all had the same thoughts running through our minds.
“Holy shit, I can’t believe they actually approved this.”
I think most of us were convinced there was no way this was actually going to happen. In a way, it’s a defense mechanism. That way, if it got turned off at the last minute, we wouldn’t be too upset.
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll believe it when we are airborne,” Walt said, walking with me into the lobby of the building.
“This has a good chance if they are actually sending us over,” I said.
By moving us, they risked more and more leaks. The rest of our command definitely knew something was going on. Even a troop movement of this relatively small size could cause spikes when a bunch of operators came through Bagram on a non-scheduled rotation.
Inside the team room, guys were eating a last-minute snack before the long flight. Some just stood around talking. We were all dressed in jeans and button-up collared shirts, our normal travel attire. We looked like a bunch of guys going on vacation. If we’d been carrying golf clubs instead of rifles and night vision goggles, you might mistake us for a professional sports team.
Other than my equipment for the raid itself, I was traveling light, with only a few changes of clothes, my shower kit, and flip-flops. We weren’t staying long. The plan was to fly over, spend two days getting acclimated, and conduct the mission on the third night.
Buses soon took us from our base to a nearby airport. On the tarmac sat a massive gray C-17 Globemaster. Its engines idled as the Air Force crew did pre-flight checks. Already on board were the helicopter mechanics. Nearby, a group of National Security Agency and CIA analysts kept to themselves.
As we sat down, it felt comfortable, like a place we’d been many times before. This was the same way we always went on deployment. Inside the belly of the aircraft, our equipment and the helicopter crews’ tools were strapped to the deck. Seats lined the walls. I threw my backpack on the deck and fished out my nylon green jungle hammock. Looking around the cargo bay for a place to hang it, I saw my teammates crawling around the plane like ant
s looking for a comfortable spot to stretch out. We were experts in making the flight as comfortable as possible.
I attached my hammock between two containers holding gear. Other guys claimed spots on top of containers or in the open space between the seats and the cargo. Some of my teammates pumped up camping mattresses, but I was one of the few who used the hammock. It was issued to us for jungle missions, but I liked that it kept me off the cold floor.
We had a nine-hour flight to Germany and after a short layover another eight hours to get to Bagram. Getting as much sleep as we could on the flight was imperative.
The Air Force crew chased us back to our seats to strap in just before takeoff. The only open seat was next to Jen, a CIA analyst. Slipping the buckle of my seatbelt into the clasp, I felt the plane start to taxi to the end of the runway. Minutes later, we raced down the tarmac and quickly climbed into the sky. Once we were level, guys started to pop Ambien and settle in for the long flight.
I wasn’t tired, so I started to talk with Jen. I’d seen her around in North Carolina, but we hadn’t gotten to talk at length since we started planning the operation. I was curious to get her take on things since she was one of the leading analysts that helped in the hunt for Bin Laden.
“Honestly,” I asked Jen. “What are the odds it’s him?”
“One hundred percent,” she shot back, almost defiant.
Recruited by the agency out of college, she’d been working on the Bin Laden task force for the last five years. Analysts rotated in and out of the task force, but she stayed and kept after it. After the al-Kuwaiti phone call, she’d worked to put all the pieces together. I missed the first day’s brief, where Jen laid out how they tracked him to Abbottabad. In the weeks since, she had been our go-to analyst on all intelligence questions regarding the target.
We’d heard the “one hundred percent” call in the past, and each time it made my stomach hurt.
“Be careful with that shit,” I said. “When our intel folks say it is one hundred percent it, is more like ten. When they say ten percent, it is more like one hundred.”
She smiled, undeterred.
“No, no,” Jen said. “One hundred percent.”
“One hundred percent like in 2007,” I said.
Like me, she remembered 2007, when we’d been spun up to chase the guy in white flowing robes. Jen rolled her eyes and frowned.
“That wasn’t a good lead,” she said, even though the lead had come from a CIA source. “That whole thing spun out of control quickly.”
It was nice to hear the CIA take even some of the blame, although you could pretty much throw a stick in 2007 and hit someone responsible for that debacle. That mission had been weighed down by the typical problem of everybody wanting to be involved. Already, the differences between 2007 and now were apparent, which lent more credibility to the current mission.
Jen wasn’t afraid to share her opinion with even the highest officers, including Vice Admiral McRaven. She had made it known in the beginning that she was not a fan of the ground-assault option.
“Sometimes JSOC can be the big gorilla in the room,” she said. “I’d rather just push the easy button and bomb it.”
This was a typical attitude outside of JSOC. There were a lot of haters not only from the big military side but also from the agency. Not everyone trusted us, because they didn’t know us.
“Don’t hold back,” I said. “Love us or hate us, you’re in the circle of trust now. We’re all in this together.”
“You mean the boys’ club,” Jen said. “You guys are just showing up for the big game.”
She was right. This was her baby. Jen and her team spent five years tracking him to get us to where we were now. We were just here to finish the job.
“You guys did all the hard work to get us here,” I said. “We’re happy to have our thirty minutes of fun and be done.”
“I’ll admit, you guys aren’t what I was expecting at all,” she said.
“See, I told you you’re in the circle,” I said.
It was dark when we landed in Bagram. We taxied to a spot far from the main terminals at the base, the ramp opened, and we saw a C-130 with its ramp down and props turning. Bagram is the main NATO base in northern Afghanistan. A massive base just north of Kabul, it had grown into the size of a small city. Thousands of soldiers and civilian contractors called the base home. Little fighting occurred out of Bagram. In fact, it had gotten so safe that now the only danger was getting a ticket for speeding on the base’s streets or for not wearing a reflective belt at night. Spending any time at Bagram would make it tough to keep our secret.
Thankfully, we were headed to Jalalabad. The runway there was too small and couldn’t handle C-17s. JSOC arranged the C-130 to meet us. We didn’t want to risk going to the main Bagram terminal or the chow hall and being seen. A whole troop showing up out of cycle would raise questions.
Gathering our bags and shaking off the Ambien, we walked silently off the back of the C-17 and directly onto the C-130.
While we settled into the orange nylon jump seats that were hung near the front of the plane, Air Force ground crews strapped three of the containers with our gear into the back of the plane. The ramp closed, and we made the one-hour flight to the base in J-bad.
The seats on the C-130 were uncomfortable. If you get stuck in the middle row, you have to rely on the guy behind you to sit up, providing support, or you sink down, crushing your back. If being able to lay out in a hammock in a C-17 was first-class military flying, then the middle seat in a C-130 was economy.
Landing in a C-130, even on a paved runway, was jarring. The wheels are close to the fuselage, so it was like landing a roller skate. Plus, it sounded like the plane itself was hitting the tarmac. I held on to the bar as the plane swung around and stopped at the main terminal. The crew chief lowered the gate, revealing buses waiting to take us to the JSOC compound.
Jalalabad airfield is located just a few miles from the Pakistan border. Home to a number of American units, including a force from JSOC, the base is the main staging area for helicopters operating in northeastern Afghanistan.
Larger than the smaller outposts that dot the valleys along the border, Jalalabad is part of Regional Command East and it’s from J-bad that units along the border get supplies and mail. It is home to about fifteen hundred soldiers as well as a number of civilian contractors. Afghan security forces help guard the base.
The runway splits the base in half. Soldiers live on the south side of the airfield. The JSOC area had its own chow hall, gym, operations center, and a number of plywood huts. The compound was home to Army Rangers, DEVGRU, and support personnel.
Almost all of us had double-digit deployments to J-bad. Walking through the gate, it felt like home.
“What’s up, brother?” Will said to me when we arrived.
He’d already gotten word that he would be part of the raid, and he was eager to get read in on the plan.
After putting our gear away, we met back at the fire pit. Guys on previous rotations had built the brick-and-mortar pit, which had become a de facto town square for the compound. Each deployment we added to it until it looked like the patio of a fraternity house. Shitty couches purchased out in town were usually crowded with guys drinking coffee, smoking cigars, or just bullshitting. The couches rotated as often as we did. Made in Pakistan, the cheap stuffing in the cushions couldn’t handle our two-hundred-pound frames for long.
The SEALs already on their scheduled deployment in Jalalabad got briefed on the plan during our flight over. They heard rumors something was spinning up, but no one knew any details until the brief.
Because Will spoke Arabic, he was the only member of his squadron selected to go with us on the assault. The rest of his teammates would be the quick reaction force or QRF, loaded in two CH-47 helicopters waiting to be called in to help if the team at the compound ran into trouble. They were also tasked to set up a forward air refueling point (FARP) north of the compound. Usin
g the massive CH-47 helicopters, which were basically flying school buses, the QRF would carry inflatable fuel bladders so the Black Hawks carrying the assault teams could stop for much-needed gas on the return flight to Jalalabad.
“You seen the mock-up?” I asked Will.
We went into a briefing room near the operations center and I undid the padlocks. Will helped me lift the wooden cover off.
“Wow. This is nice,” he said, leaning over it to look closely at the mock-up.
Will looked like your average SEAL. He was about five foot ten inches tall with a lean physique. The thing that made him different was the fact that he had taught himself Arabic. He was extremely smart, professional, and a man of few words.
The SEAL teams were a very close-knit community. It felt odd showing up to do this mission when everyone knew the squadron that was already deployed could have pulled it off just as well as we could. The only reason we were tasked with this mission was because we were available to conduct the needed rehearsals to sell the option to the decision makers at the White House. Every squadron at the command was interchangeable. It came down to being at the right place at the right time.
“So, give me the rundown,” Will said.
“OK, we’re in Chalk One,” I said. “Our bird will be the first to approach from the southeast and hold station here.”
I pointed at the courtyard.
“We’ll rope in and clear this building, which we’re calling C1,” I said.
It was pretty standard stuff, and it didn’t take Will long to fall into step. For the next several hours, we went over the whole plan and all the contingencies. I told him about all the rehearsals leading up to this point. This was Will’s first taste of the extensive planning the rest of us had been dealing with for weeks. Spending three weeks rehearsing for a mission was very odd. Typically, in Afghanistan or Iraq, we would get tasked with a mission, plan it, and launch in a few hours.
