The book “NO Easy Day” describes the raid conducted by the SEAL team to kill Osama Bin Laden. Mark Owen is the pen name of the author. He was a former member of the SEAL team that helped to kill Osama who was a well known terrorist. Osama was killed after being shot by the SEAL team in the head (Owen & Maurer 241).
The author of the book has managed to fulfill his mission by clearly explaining what actually happened when the raid was being conducted. His explanations are useful in that they help to provide an insight on how the United States trained and planned for that operation.
The main reason for choosing to review the book “NO Easy Day” is that the book helps to give a strong understanding of how security personnel can employ different tactics to eliminate a dangerous person from society. The book is very much applicable to this class in the sense that it provides students with detailed information concerning the role played by Osama Bin Laden and the effects of Osama’s actions in the society.
The book is relevant since it helps individuals to avoid engaging in activities that seem to have very adverse effects on the society. The killing of Osama Bin Laden is a clear warning to other individuals who may want to engage in such acts. Thus, killing Osama Bin Laden served as a good example to explain to the people the kind of repercussions of engaging in acts of terrorism.
The first part of this book mainly focuses on how Mark Owen joined the SEAL team. Initially, the SEAL team worked on warfare development but currently, the team deals with high-profile missions. Such missions include the mission where the SEAL team was assigned the duty of killing Osama Bin Laden. Before becoming a member of the SEAL team, one is required to train for at least nine months.
This process helps to push individuals to their mental and physical limits to enable them work together and respond to different situations without any disruption. Such training was very crucial in capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden. Conducting such a raid is not an easy task and thus, there is a need to have a team that is well trained and equipped in dealing with such situations.
The next section of the book mainly talks about the procedure that was used to make the raid a success. The various events that took place during the raiding process are also discussed including the outcome of these events. The other part of the book mainly explains how Mark Owen trained to become a SEAL and managed kill and organize a number of raids. Most of these raids were conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The author comes from Alaska and enjoys a strong physical specimen which makes it easy for him to tolerate different tests. In this part of the book, another Afghanistan mission is explained where Mark Owen together with his friends managed to walk across many miles through vertical escarpments as they tried to sneak into a compound that belonged to the Taliban. In this part, the author also outlines different strategies that can be used to attack an enemy.
This is important in ensuring that missions like the raid on Osama do not cause a lot of casualties. The attacking team is required to keep and observe the outlined strategies in order to be safe during the raiding process. In carrying out the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden, the author explains that they started this process by creeping forward. Everybody was expected to remain quiet and each of the steps made was deliberate.
However, the author explains that during the raiding process, the SEAL team suffered increased levels of fear since they were also aware of the consequences. Undertaking such a move would indeed cause them to lose their lives if not conducted in the most appropriate way. This is due to the fact that even Osama Bin Laden and his friends were armed since they knew that they could be attacked any time.
The author adds that when the SEAL team started on a mission to attack the compound where Osama was believed to be hiding, none of the officials from the United States was aware that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in the compound. The US president did not waste any time asking for help from Pakistan leaders since it was evident that these leaders could not offer any help to the US government.
This is contrary to what is expected amongst leaders in different countries. In order to realize good international relations, there is need for the leaders to have good relationship so that they can offer collective assistance to one another. Osama Bin Laden was believed to be a terrorist whose actions caused many deaths in different parts of the world.
By failing to offer the necessary help to the US government, it meant that the Pakistan leaders were not ready to end acts of terrorism. This is the main reason why the US president asked the SEAL team to fly to Pakistan to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden (Owen & Maurer 269). The need to end terrorism made the president not to care about the consequences of asking the SEAL team to attack Osama Bin Laden even without having to request for permission from Pakistan leaders.
The major strength of the book is that the raiding mission that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden is described by a person who was part of the team conducting the operation. This helps to give the book a sense of originality and reduces cases of biasness. After reading the book, I also found some weaknesses in it. For instance, the author is over cautious when describing the mission to raid Osama’s compound.
The way the author describes this mission makes the reader to believe that the whole process was easy to undertake. Another weakness is that the author gives much information on the operations that led to the killing of Osama. For instance, the author explains that they had to creep forward and each of the steps made was deliberate. According to my own perspective, this description is not necessary.
There are a number of facts that the audience can lean after reading the book “NO Easy Day”. For instance, it is evident that the US president asked the SEAL team to fly to Pakistan to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. This is because Mark Owen and his friends conducted a rehearsal on how they could attack and kill Osama.
This idea is also supported by the fact that the SEAL team is the president’s security team. This means that the president knew all the activities of the team including the raid to kill Osama. The chairman of staff chiefs did not also question the activities of the SEAL team. Instead, he left the operation team to attack the house where Osama Bin Laden was believed to be hiding.
The other information obtained after reading the book is that the intelligence officers from the USca were not sure that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in a compound where the SEAL team killed him.
However, it is surprising to note how officers had vast information concerning that compound but were not sure if Osama could be hiding in that compound. When the author asked the officers about the appropriate method to use when attacking, the officers gave an immediate answer and added that the door of the house where Osama was believed to be hiding opens from outside.
After reading the book, it is also evident that a helicopter that had taken the SEAL team to the scene developed some problems thereby forcing the team members to destroy it. The pilot of the helicopter contributed significantly to the success of this raid by managing to control the helicopter and preventing it from crushing before attacking the compound. Had the helicopter crashed, then Osama would have found an opportunity of escaping from the compound and the whole mission of capturing or killing him would fail.
From the way in which the SEALs carried out the raid, it is true to say that they were mainly interested in killing Osama Bin Laden and not capturing him. The SEAL team is known to be very aggressive in their operations and this explains why they would have sprayed Osama with more bullets in case the first bullet failed to kill him.
If I had a chance to talk with the author of the book, I would seek to get answers on a number of issues. Firstly, I would seek to know why the author decided to violate the confidentiality agreement between him and defense department by deciding to write the book “NO Easy Day”.
I would also want to know whether Mark Owen had consulted the SEAL team before writing this book. If so, I would want to establish the terms and conditions given to the author by the SEAL team before he could write the book. Lastly, I would congratulate the author for carefully planning this raid and making it a success. The killing of Osama gave a major boost on the fight against terrorism.
I found a very interesting quote from the book where the author said, “Our reward was doing the job, and we wouldn’t have it any other way” (Owen & Maurer 268). I got interested in this quote because it described the commitment of the SEAL in making sure that Osama was dead.
This showed that they were committed in fighting individuals engaged in terrorism. I would recommend other people to read the book because it can turn out to be very helpful especially in enhancing the war against terrorism. By reading the book, people can also learn the strong commitment from different governments especially on the war on terror. I would particularly recommend security personnel to read this book since it provides different strategies that a given security team can use to attack an enemy.
Works Cited
Owen, Mark and Kevin Maurer. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. New York, N.Y: Dutton, 2012. Print.