“Keep this on the down low because nobody knows this,” Jay said. “You’re going to meet the president in Kentucky tomorrow.”
With the dog and pony circuit in full effect, we had assumed it was coming.
“We’ll fly up in civilian clothes and then change into our uniforms to meet the president,” Jay said.
They dismissed us, and we were done for the day. On the way to my truck, my phone buzzed.
It was a text message from my sister.
“I hear you’re going to meet the president tomorrow,” she said. “Make sure you don’t wear shorts so they don’t see your gazelle-type legs and know you’re a SEAL.”
So much for operational security.
The next morning, we left on one of the oldest C-130s I’d ever seen. It had a new paint job, which masked its age from the outside. But getting on board, the inside looked old. Everything was faded.
As we climbed up the ramp, none of us were impressed. We were used to flying around in much newer C- 130s or even C-17s.
“So much for rock star status,” Charlie said as he folded his six-foot-four frame into the orange jump seat. “I guess our fifteen minutes of fame are over.”
But a plaque near the door told us the true story. The plane was one of three MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft used in Operation Eagle Claw.
It turns out a crew chief found the plane mothballed and talked an Air Force general into renovating it and returning it to the inventory. It was sort of fitting that we’d fly to Kentucky to meet the president on that plane. It had a lot of history and I guess it had at least one more historic flight in it.
From the airport, we took back roads to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s headquarters, where Teddy and the aircrews were based. President Obama was scheduled to talk with thousands of troops from the 101st Airborne Division after meeting with us.
They ushered us into a large conference room to wait. Along the back wall was a table piled high with gourmet sandwiches, chips, cookies, and soft drinks.
“We’re moving up in the world,” I said. “This is way better than cold chicken fingers. Do you think they are going to make us pay for this?”
On one of the tables near the door was a framed flag. It was one of the flags we carried on the mission. Guys were signing the back of the frame and the plan was to present it to the president.
“Why do I need to sign this?” I asked Tom.
Like always, he was running things while Jay and Mike met with the higher-ups.
“Everybody that was on the raid needs to sign it,” he said.
“Why?” I just wanted an explanation.
“It’s going to the president,” Tom said, growing tired of my questions.
“How many hands does it pass through before it gets hung on the wall?” I asked. “Don’t they have tours of the White House?”
The only thing that remained secret was our names.
I went over to the other guys.
“Is everybody signing this thing?”
Most of the guys had already signed it.
“Just scribble a random name on there and you’ll be good,” Charlie said. “That’s what I did.”
After a lot of hurry up and wait, we finally walked to an auditorium to meet the president. The Secret Service ran us through a metal detector. When they got to me, the wand beeped when it passed over my pocketknife. I took my knife out and added it to the growing pile.
There was a small stage with rows of chairs in front.
Walt sat down next to me.
“I’d rather be doing underways than be here,” he said.
Obama arrived in a dark suit, white shirt, and light blue tie. Vice President Biden was at his side in a blue shirt and red tie. The president stood on the stage and spoke to us for a few minutes. He presented the unit with a Presidential Unit Citation, in recognition of our achievement. It is the highest honor that can be given to a unit.
I don’t recall much about the speech. It was straight from the speechwriter playbook:
“You guys are America’s best.”
“You are what America stands for.”
“Thank you from the American people.”
“Job well done.”
After the speech, we posed for a few pictures. Biden kept cracking lame jokes that no one got. He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner. Before leaving to give a speech to two thousand soldiers from the 101st, Obama invited the whole team to his residence for a beer.
“What is the residence?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Walt said. “His house. The White House, I guess.”
“That would be kind of cool,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind going to the residence.”
Walt just smirked.
As the bus drove us to the airport, Obama delivered a speech to cheering soldiers in a hangar on the base.
“We have cut off their head,” he said, “and we will ultimately defeat them… our strategy is working, and there is no greater evidence of that than justice finally being delivered to Osama bin Laden.”
After that trip, things started to return to normal. We jumped back into our normal schedule, gone for a few weeks and then home for a week. We were back on the speeding train.
We never got the call to have a beer at the White House. I remember I brought it up a few months later to Walt. We’d just come back from the range and we were walking back into the team room.
“Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” I asked.
Walt’s smirk was back.
“You believed that shit,” he said. “I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”
Epilogue
Less than a year after the Bin Laden mission, I got off the speeding train.
I’d spent over a decade of my life sacrificing for this job and country. I gave up everything to live this dream. Long periods spent away from friends and family, missed holidays, and a physical beating on my body that will last the rest of my life. I served with America’s best and made lifelong friends with a group of guys I call my brothers. Since my first deployment as a SEAL and the attacks on September 11, I’d dreamt of being involved in the mission that would kill or capture Osama bin Laden. I was lucky enough to play a role. Now, it is time for someone else to take a turn.
Very few people can say that they were lucky enough to stay in an operational job their entire SEAL career. From the day I graduated BUD/S, I moved to SEAL Team Five and then on to DEVGRU. I never worked a nonoperational job. In more than a decade as a SEAL, I didn’t have a break, just a steady drumbeat of combat deployments. After finishing my team leader time earlier this year, I was slated to leave my squadron and either be an instructor in Green Team or work one of several other nonoperational jobs within the command. These jobs were far from the battlefield and, to be perfectly honest, probably just the break that I needed. I knew after that short break, I would be itching to get back into the fight. Like everyone at the command, my personal life suffered under the strain of deployments. It was time for my own life to take a priority. As much as I hated leaving the command, it was time for me to move on and end my career as a SEAL.
Before I left, I met with the commander who welcomed us home after the raid. He was now the acting commander of DEVGRU. I knew that as a well-respected commanding officer, he actually understood the stresses we lived under. We met in his office a few days before I was scheduled to sign out of the command.
“What can we do to keep you?” the commander said.
