Book Will Describe Raid That Killed Bin Laden

By JULIE BOSMAN - The New York Times

Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe day after, local residents and the news media gathered at the hideout in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed by United States forces.

A detailed first-person account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, written by a member of the Navy SEALs who participated in the mission and was present at Bin Laden’s death, will be released next month, the publisher said on Wednesday.

A closely held secret within Penguin, the publishing house that is planning to release it on Sept. 11, the book promises to be one of the biggest titles of the year, with the potential to rattle the presidential campaign in the final weeks before the Nov. 6 election.
Titled “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden,” the book was written by a member of the SEALs who is using the pseudonym Mark Owen. Dutton, the imprint of Penguin that acquired the book, said he used a pen name and changed the names of other SEAL members for security reasons.


The author, a former member of SEAL Team 6, was a leader in the operation that resulted in the death of Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011. According to a description of the book provided by the publisher, the author gives a “blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen’s life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden’s death.” It describes the book as “an essential piece of modern history.”

He also recalls his childhood in Alaska, the grueling preparation to become a member of the SEALs and his other previously unreported SEAL missions. He has completed 13 combat deployments since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and he retired within the past year.
A co-writer, Kevin Maurer, is the author of four books and was embedded with Special Forces in Afghanistan six times.

Penguin officials would not address whether they sought approval to publish the material from any government agencies. Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy’s chief spokesman, said in an e-mail: “The author did not seek Navy support/approval for this book. We have no record of any request from an author associated with that book company.”
Full story at The New York Times