the operator: firing the shots that killed osama bin laden and my years as a seal team warrior  <p>stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, <i>the operator</i> ranges across seal team operator robert o'neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "lone survivor" marcus luttrell and abducted-by-somali-pirates captain richard phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, osama bin laden. </p> <p>in this book o'neill describes his idyllic childhood in butte, montana; his impulsive decision to join the seals; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the seals' most elite unit. after officially becoming a seal, o'neill would spend more than a decade in the most intense counterterror effort in us history. for extended periods, not a night passed without him and his small team recording multiple enemy kills - and though he was lucky enough to survive, several of the seals he'd trained with and fought beside never made it home. </p> <p><i>the operator</i> describes the nonstop action of o'neill's deployments in iraq and afghanistan, evokes the black humor of years-long combat, brings to vivid life the lethal efficiency of the military's tier one units, and reveals firsthand details of the most celebrated terrorist takedown in history. </p>