put it on the other helicopter so in the event they lost one chopper they still had proof of who they had killed. the other guys from the other squadron were going to come pick us up. so we split up from there with the helicopters the pilots thought they could fly it but my boss made the decision to blow it up. blown up with a very hot-burning substance that basically will destroy anything in it. it just melts the helicopter down because it is a classified piece of military equipment with a lot of interesting electronics inside of it, they didn t want to leave anything behind that they don t want people stumbling across. so we reached an explosives up and then we blew that up, helicopter came to get us and then we got on the helicopter and flew out. that was a bit more intense because now we re there, people know something happened, they know helicopters were involved and now we re trying to get back
anymore. and just the closure for those families. that was only 20, 25 families. there s thousands and thousands of families affected by this. that s the reason that we went. accepting death the way we did, because it wasn t for ourselves to get the big mission and have bragging rights. the reason that we left on a mission knowing we re probably going to die more than likely not come home was for the single mom that went to work on tuesday morning and later that morning she made the conscious decision to jump to her death because it s better than burning alive. i thought that it would be irresponsible of me not to give everyone else closure that it s over. and, yes, there s personal risk in doing this, but i ve accepted personal risk before because it s bigger than me. it s not about me. every time i ve talked to
going to blow up. yeah, it s good to be out here. it s a great way to relax. being outside is a lot better than golf because if you lose something in the bush, you know, you can put a new one on. when rob was off at war and you would come out here? yeah. was it ever peaceful enough for you to set aside all the concerns you had for him? yes. a lot of times it was. but it also gives you a lot of time to think about what he might be going through too. you know, but being out here in this environment where all of a sudden it s either the middle of the night or just before dawn and you re still here getting ready to do what you do, it s very calming. you do get a good feel about life. knowing that rob had been doing a lot of that with me and the limited experience i have in the outdoors and everything. i knew he was handling whatever he needed to be in. rob, after 9/11 you had a very stressful decade of war.
and sold is if he somehow in the confusion believed he was the second man up the stairs when in fact he was the third. is it possible that somebody s going to come out now, watching this, and say rob o neill did not kill usama bin laden? i can probably see that happening. it s one of those things where i heard from a guy that heard from a guy that heard from a guy. and all of a sudden it turns into a different story. again, it doesn t bother me. you know, there was two people that were there. the thing that i ve learned especially from this mission because there are people with differing accounts, the thing that i ve learned the most is regardless of rank, position, office, unless you were in the room at the time, you only know what you were told. and that speaks to
defended. and i m looking at usama bin laden s house and i m thinking this is so cool. so the guys outside the compound had to blow open the gate in order to enter the compound. those in the chopper that crash landed inside the compound just began moving toward the target that they had planned to hit. there was a door under the wall. we went up to that, one of the breachers put a big bomb on it, blasted it. and it opened sort of like a tin can. that is a brick wall behind it. theher said failed breach, this is bad. i m thinking, no, this is good. that s a fake door. someone important s in this house. now, we still didn t know that the helicopter had crashed. so we announced we re going to blast the main carport letting them know because they re going to be fast roping in and don t want to blow open, but then we hear over the radio we ll just open it for you. we re like what s that mean? and the door opens and a thumb comes out, a thumb s up.