Only a matter of time before the DOJ, FBI and NCIS file charges against him.
After months of training on targets with images of Osama bin Laden’s face, Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill was finally face to face with the man responsible for 9/11.
A second later, bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, was facedown on the floor. Dead.
O’Neill, who reportedly fired those fatal shots, was a leader of SEAL Team Six, the top-notch U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group that stormed the Pakistani home where the terror leader had been hiding. After a brief but action-filled 15 minutes in the home, the team emerged with bin Laden in a body bag. No Americans were injured.
On Friday, O’Neill visited High Point University to speak about his background in the Navy and his combat missions.
Before the presentation, he spoke about what it was like to be a part of the group that killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.
“It was an honor to be a part of that team,” he said. “To be honest, it was really cool.”
Before leaving for Afghanistan, where the helicopters would then fly into Pakistan, O’Neill wrote letters to his children and wife, explaining the importance of what he was doing and why he would die with the people he was supposed to die with. He and the rest of his team were almost certain the mission was a one-way ticket for them.[…]
O’Neill was visiting HPU to help raise money for his foundation, called Your Grateful Nation. The organization helps special operators transition from the military to the private sector before they retire, O’Neill said.
“Right now in the military, you need 20 years to retire,” he said. “A lot of guys fight so much and have been at war so long, they want to get out early, but they don’t get a pension. So what we’re doing is we’re taking very highly skilled individuals and putting them into jobs. We have friends on the outside that have great companies that put them to work.”
For almost seven years, O’Neill worked as a Navy SEAL. He led the group in four different theaters of war and more than 400 missions. In all those expeditions, not a single man on his team was hurt.
During his lecture, he said despite the terror going on around him, with men he trusted behind him, he never was overwhelmed by the likely prospect of dying.
“Fear is healthy, but panic is contagious and will get you killed,” he said. “Bravery is not the absence of fear. It’s recognizing it and participating in your own life.”