Robert O'Neill - The Man Who Killed Bin Laden

Robert O’Neill is one of the most highly-decorated combat veterans of our time and the author of The New York Times best-selling memoir, "The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama bin Laden" and "My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior". O'Neill fired the headshots that killed Osama bin Laden during the raid on his Abbottabad compound on May 2, 2011. Having trained more than 800 special operations and tactical operators, O’Neill brings this unique expertise to organizations and translates his elite SEAL team training into high-impact, actionable insights on leadership, decision-making, operating in uncertain environments, and how to become the ‘best of the best.’ He is currently a contributor at Fox News. Since leaving active duty, O’Neill is a co-founder of Your Grateful Nation, which provides individualized transition support for Special Operations heroes and their families. They provide executive-level mentoring, transition services, and family stabilization support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 1:48Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. This is Ed Mylett. Today is not a normal program. I have a true American hero sitting across the table from me here today. So if you don't recognize this face, let me tell you who he is. This is Robert O'Neill. And we've had a lot of sports people on here, a lot of entertainers that in most people's minds are heroes. And then in life, you meet a real hero. He doesn't consider himself one, but he is one. And so let me give him the proper introduction, just so you know who this man is. 52 decorations in the military, two silver stars.

• 2:22Ed Mylett?

  Four Bronze Star Medals with valor, Joint Service Commendation Medal with valor, three Presidential Unit Citations, two Navy-Marine and Navy-Corps combinations with valor, service 400 different combat missions, 400. If you've watched the movie Captain Phillips, this is the first guy onto the boat when the Somali pirates had that boat. If you've watched Lone Survivor with Marcus Luttrell, he was on that recovery mission. And by the way, he also killed Osama bin Laden. And so, thank you for being here.

• 2:57Robert O'Neill?

  I appreciate that. And like you mentioned too, it's not a hero thing. I was very fortunate to be with incredible teams.

• 3:04Ed Mylett?

  I know you are.

• 3:04Robert O'Neill?

  From all branches of the service and everyone was there. And the Captain Phillips thing, I was not one of the shooters, I was the lead jumper for that. And the snipers that were there with really no time, were just, were watching to make sure nothing unsafe happened when they shot, which is incredible.

• 3:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Robert O'Neill?

  And it's an amazing journey, all because of right place, right time.

• 3:25Ed Mylett?

  Right place, right time.

• 3:26Robert O'Neill?

  And positive attitude.

• 3:26Ed Mylett?

  And right man, which we're gonna talk about today. And so, also, thank you for your service.

• 3:30Robert O'Neill?

  It was an honor.

• 3:30Ed Mylett?

  Not just being here, so thank you. How's that for a hero, everybody? And so, we're gonna get into the mind of this man today. We're gonna talk about team building, what he's up to today, and obviously, some of the great things that you've been a part of, on the teams you were a part of. And so, all great things happen as being a part of a team, both you and I know that. But then, there's blessing when the opportunity arrives, we meet it with our preparation, which is what you did.

• 3:53Robert O'Neill?

  That's exactly right, to meet it with your preparation. Never the perfect plan, because that's never gonna happen. Like, we'll get into it later too, but the bin Laden raid, we had the perfect plan, and nothing, nothing came to fruition.

• 4:03Ed Mylett?

  Nothing worked.

• 4:04Robert O'Neill?

  Everything, the worst possible thing to happen, happened.

• 4:07Ed Mylett?

  Wow, okay. Let's get right into that.

• 4:09Robert O'Neill?

  Alright, let's do it.

• 4:09Ed Mylett?

  Okay, let's do that first. Let me ask you, before we get to that, I'm just curious, why'd you get in the military in the first place?

• 4:14Robert O'Neill?

  That's another one too. It was never a plan. I was going to, I was actually playing college basketball, and I was gonna work with my dad when I got out of college, and I got dumped by a girl, and wanted to leave Butte, Montana.

• 4:25Ed Mylett?

  Come on!

• 4:26Robert O'Neill?

  Yep. The first line in my book, The Operator, it says, "I owe my career as a Navy SEAL to a girl." And that was an accident too, because I didn't want to join the Navy, I wanted to join the Marines.

• 4:36Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 4:36Robert O'Neill?

  So I, because I'm a hunter, and I wanted to be a sniper, and Marine snipers, Carlos Hathcock, you know, just kick ass, the uniforms, Marines.

• 4:43Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 4:43Robert O'Neill?

  Uh, so I went to join, and again, as luck would have it, the Marine recruiter wasn't in there. The Navy guy was sitting there. And the only reason that I went to, to the Navy guy is because I had two friends I grew up with, Ben and Jim, who were Marines, two, they're two years older, um, and they told me that the Marine Corps is actually, uh, part of the Department of the Navy. It's just the men's department.

• 5:06Robert O'Neill?

  So I went to ask the Navy guy, um, where's the, when's he come back from lunch? And he goes, well, why do you want the Marine? And I said, uh, well, I want to be a sniper. And he's this clever recruiter, he was wearing khakis, he's a Navy chief.

• 5:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 5:17Robert O'Neill?

  Clever guys. And he goes, oh, we have snipers in the Navy, look no further. And he slowly said, or quickly said, um, you need to become a Navy SEAL first, no big deal. Then we'll send you to sniper school, and I didn't know how to swim.

• 5:28Ed Mylett?

  Come on.

• 5:29Robert O'Neill?

  And this guy talked me into it, because I remember being so dumb. I'm like, I'm naive, but this guy's a professional recruiter, why would he lie to me?

• 5:35Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 5:36Robert O'Neill?

  And that's it. And then, um, when I got in, he showed me the videos, I'm like, holy crap, I mean, I, I don't know these, I can't swim. And, uh, I said, well, I'll be positive about it, I'll just, I'll go to San Diego, I'll, I'll see this cool training, I probably won't make it. But then I'll go to the fleet and be in the Navy and have sea stories when I come back home to Maloney's Bar in Butte, Montana. But then I made it through.

• 5:57Ed Mylett?

  Are you being serious?

• 5:58Robert O'Neill?

  That, that's what happened.

• 5:59Ed Mylett?

  So you ended up, because the other recruiter no-shows?

• 6:02Robert O'Neill?

  He wasn't there. Well, he didn't know I was coming in, I just went in to leave town.

• 6:05Ed Mylett?

  Because of the girl?

• 6:06Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh.

• 6:07Robert O'Neill?

  And that story's kind of common, well, both of them, that, uh, people went to join the Army, but they weren't there, and they joined the Marine Corps.

• 6:11Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 6:11Robert O'Neill?

  And, and like, it's so funny, like, eighty percent of the all-volunteer military is there because someone dumped them.

• 6:17Ed Mylett?

  That's unbelievable.

• 6:18Robert O'Neill?

  And men and women both.

• 6:19Ed Mylett?

  And you became a Navy SEAL but couldn't swim?

• 6:22Robert O'Neill?

  Well, I learned, I, I had five months from the time I signed to, till the time I left. And I had a friend I went to high school with who swam at Notre Dame. I rented him by luck too at the pool. He was like, um, I've, I've never seen you at the pool before. What's going on? And I said, I just joined the Navy and I'm going to be a SEAL. And he goes, oh, not like that. You're not. And he's teach taught me like the breaststroke.

• 6:40Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable. So you know the breaststroke.

• 6:42Robert O'Neill?

  And the side stroke.

• 6:42Ed Mylett?

  Okay, that's incredible. So I, I have this theory. I tell people all the time. I say that life doesn't happen for you or to you. It happens for you, right? And these things all, it's amazing that the guy who ends up killing the most evil person of our time, of the modern time, ends up in the SEAL program by mistake, by default, because of a girl.

• 7:02Robert O'Neill?

  If you figure this, um, a, a, a semi decent shaped white kid that can't swim from Butte, Montana, becomes a Navy SEAL and ends up in bin Laden's bedroom just because of a positive attitude. It doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from. You can do anything. Just keep your head in it. Avoid the negativity.

• 7:17Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:18Robert O'Neill?

  That's it.

• 7:18Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:19Robert O'Neill?

  And that's proof. I mean, I, I call, I call my book, The Operator, not because I'm calling myself The Operator. I'm talking about the life of The Operator. Every Ranger, every Green Beret, every Navy SEAL. And they all, the stories are similar. And it's the two things are positive attitude, sense of humor.

• 7:32Ed Mylett?

  Sense of humor. I did notice that about you right when we met too. Like that's, I gotta say one thing about this book, The Operator. Like if you have not read it, I have, but if you've not read it, this is like, this is something, once you start reading it, it's just the truth too. Like you cannot stop reading this book. I mean, it's, cause it's actual, real stuff. I mean, it's, you're just, it's, I read the book in a day. And I'm telling you, like, I was trying to get rid of other appointments. I had to finish reading this book. So get this book.

• 7:56Robert O'Neill?

  I, I had a similar experience. My wife, Jessica, talked me into reading the audio book too. Because she said, no one can tell your stories. You have to do it. And as I'm in the booth, they can hear every gurgle. And I'm reading this book. I remember thinking, this is pretty goddamn good book. Yeah, it's mine.

• 8:11Ed Mylett?

  This is pretty good. Okay. So now we know that life definitely happens for us. And that also the big things in our life never show up the way we envisioned them. And like, in other words, when you were a 12 year old boy, this was your dream, your picture of what was going to be a defining moment of your life was not being in a room with Osama bin Laden, right? This is how amazing how when you just chase your dream, bust your ass, have positive attitude.

• 8:32Robert O'Neill?

  Even being at a SEAL team that could potentially get bin Laden, when he was, we didn't know where the hell he was. And we're in Iraq fighting. And we would, we would mess with people. I was a battlefield interrogator, which means you take the house down, you get the men and you, you question them. Basically, you're not whatever, waterboarding or any of that stuff, but. I remember like messing with guys and I would say like, who's the man of the house? Where's the mosque? And I would say, where's Osama Bin Laden? And we would both laugh like, no one knows where he is. So even as a member of that drill team.

• 9:02Ed Mylett?

  That's incredible.

• 9:03Robert O'Neill?

  We're not gonna ever, I'm never gonna get him.

• 9:05Ed Mylett?

  That's incredible.

• 9:05Robert O'Neill?

  I'm never gonna be there. It's gonna be the army guys that get him.

• 9:08Ed Mylett?

  That's incredible. Okay, but you do get him.

• 9:11Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Ed Mylett?

  So let's, let's walk through that for a second. Okay. Cause you talk about preparation, positive attitude preparation. So you start to, did you know when you were prepping?

• 9:20Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 9:20Ed Mylett?

  That you were prepping for him?

• 9:21Robert O'Neill?

  They told us about three weeks before we left that it was Bin Laden. And that was one of the coolest things because at first, they started off with, um, they called us, we were all on our, um, we just finished a deployment. I think it was my 12th combat deployment. And we were on a diving trip in Miami. And we were always good about that too. After a deployment, after war, we would do a training trip, but it was always a good deal. Like diving in Miami, climbing in Vegas.

• 9:45Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 9:45Robert O'Neill?

  Shit like that.

• 9:45Ed Mylett?

  But the diving in Miami, by the way, the other thing about being a SEAL, I just wanna say, you don't like sharks.

• 9:50Robert O'Neill?

  I respect them now. I had a run in with one one time and that's enough. But no, that, I mean, anyone that's been in the ocean has had a positive encounter with a shark and don't realize it. They're, they're out there. They don't mess with you. They really do. It's by, it's usually by accident or a juvenile, a young great white. The problem with the great white is he's curious and if they bite you, it's a, I use the word devastating.

• 10:11Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable. Like, are you listening to this? Like, it's unbelievable.

• 10:14Robert O'Neill?

  I've, I've never been attacked by a shark. I've seen them.

• 10:16Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so you're prepping.

• 10:17Robert O'Neill?

  But we're, so we're diving in Miami and they called the senior guys back.

• 10:21Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 10:21Robert O'Neill?

  So I was one of them. My number two was, my boss was there. And we sat in a room and the first thing they said is, well, here's the deal. This isn't a drill. Uh, we found a thing and this thing is in a house. And this house is in a bowl, uh, in some mountains near a lake, in a country. And you guys are gonna fly in there and you're gonna get this thing and you're gonna bring it back. And that's it. And so it actually started off, okay, no problem. What's the thing? Can't tell you. Okay. Where's, where's the bowl? Can't tell you. What country? Can't tell you. How are we getting there? Can't tell you. And then we're like, how much air support do we have? And they said, well, none. And we're like, well, at least that's an answer. So we assumed it was Gaddafi. Cause the Arab Spring just started. It's March 2011. Not even go kill Gaddafi, but like recover him or whatever they wanna do. Uh, but then eventually we started to put two and two together and, and, um,

• 11:07Robert O'Neill?

  They drove us down to, they gave us a day at home with our kids and we drove down and then the commanding officer from my SEAL team, he walked in the room as calm as ever and said, "Alright guys, the reason you're here is this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden."

• 11:20Ed Mylett?

  What happened to your body when you heard that?

• 11:22Robert O'Neill?

  A little bit of goosebumps, but I've heard reports of cheers and high fives. I looked around and everyone is professional. These are very professional Navy SEALs. And the first question was, "Cool, are we going right now? Let's do it, we're ready." And they said, "Well, no, we need to show you everything and then there are like five options. Are we gonna bomb them this way, bomb them that way?" And they actually said, "Are you gonna do a multilateral mission with the Pakistani military?" And everyone laughed like, "Seriously? You tell them that we're gonna get bin Laden, he is gone, you will never find him." And then they wanted us to train as a unilateral option. So the powers that be wanted to see us train. I understand that. We knew we could go, we've been doing it every night for years.

• 12:05Robert O'Neill?

  So we just started training, they had us sight there and we're training on it, whatever, and we went there, we went to a place out west that I'm not allowed to talk about. And then we forward launched to Jalalabad Airfield, just in case the president gave us the green light. President Obama was really cool about it because there was one person that was sure bin Laden was there, and she was the famous three-letter agency woman. She was funny, and she was just that awesome, because she would be like, "100%, he's in this house on the third floor, why aren't we going now?" He's there.

• 12:36Ed Mylett?

  Is she the same as you see her in the movie?

• 12:38Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, looks a little different, attractive, but different. Oh, total, total. Jessica Chastain nailed it. But yeah, President Obama was one, and he was just cool. Later he said, "Look, after hearing about your training, I wasn't 100% sure he was there, but I was 100% sure you guys could go in, find out, and come back." And that's why we got the call.

• 12:58Ed Mylett?

  How long was the training, the prep, before you went?

• 13:01Robert O'Neill?

  Two weeks.

• 13:01Ed Mylett?

  Two weeks. And so then, do you ultimately end up getting a phone call? Do they gather you in a room and say, "We're going tomorrow"?

• 13:07Robert O'Neill?

  Well, we trained in two different areas. We had to train on those Stealth helicopters, the pilots who don't get nearly enough credit because they'd never flown those before.

• 13:17Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Robert O'Neill?

  Didn't know about those before.

• 13:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:19Robert O'Neill?

  Um, but we, we knew we were gonna go over there. I think it was on a Monday or a Tuesday. Just to be there in case they call us, we're ready to launch from, from Afghanistan, the closest base to the border.

• 13:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 13:28Robert O'Neill?

  And so, uh, we knew we were going, we forward staged and that, you know, that's when we said goodbye to the kids. Um, which is hard because we, we didn't think we were coming back from that mission. We thought it was, if we get the green light, it's a one-way mission.

• 13:40Ed Mylett?

  Well, you said, let's talk about that for a second. You, um, you thought you were gonna die.

• 13:44Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 13:44Ed Mylett?

  The fact that you knew you were gonna die.

• 13:45Robert O'Neill?

  I, I knew, we weren't coming back.

• 13:47Ed Mylett?

  And your teammates, um, also know this as well, right?

• 13:51Robert O'Neill?

  Yes, everyone was a very, to the point.

• 13:53Ed Mylett?

  Why did you know that? Was this because there's gonna be a?

• 13:55Robert O'Neill?

  We don't know if the technology works. We don't know how good their air defenses are. Maybe the, the, the young kid that's very aggressive is on the radar that night. Um, there are no checkpoints. People don't understand when you do a long-range helicopter mission, there are usually checkpoints to refuel. There aren't, there are none of those. So we have to be exact with the pounds of weight that we have. So, we get shot down. Um, if anyone's gonna blow himself up and his entire family, when the team's in the house, Bin Laden will do it.

• 14:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 14:21Robert O'Neill?

  Martyr himself and his entire family. We run out of fuel and there's 23 guys in Pakistan. We invaded them. We have nowhere to go. Uh, we end our lives in a Pakistani prison. We don't know what's gonna, so, but we accepted it and, and the way that I, the way that I always explain this.

• 14:36Ed Mylett?

  Those are not great scenarios.

• 14:37Robert O'Neill?

  And, but we're going because we, I had a guy on the team, that actually he, he ended up being the guy that was in front of me going up the stairs, the last set of stairs that, that said, um, don't get me wrong, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm going, 100% going on the mission, but I have to say this out loud to hear it. If we know we're gonna die, why are we going?

• 14:57Ed Mylett?

  What did you say?

• 14:58Robert O'Neill?

  So we had a conversation, a bunch of us, and what we decided was the best way to put it into, um, perspective is we're not going after Bin Laden for fame. We're not going after Bin Laden for money. We are going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a brilliant Tuesday morning. And 45 minutes later, she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper because that was a better alternative than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Her last gesture of human decency was to hold her skirt to her knees so that no one could see her underwear as she killed herself. And we said, she wasn't supposed to do that. She's not supposed to be in the fight. We're supposed to be in the fight and that's why we're going. And then if you think about it too, it's almost like the Braveheart speech. If I could give every day from being thirty-four to ninety. If I lived to ninety and I looked back on that one day and I didn't go.

• 15:44Robert O'Neill?

  I would give all those days to go on this mission. This is why we're here. This is what we're doing. This is why we joined.

• 15:50Ed Mylett?

  This is not a movie though, you're real men.

• 15:52Robert O'Neill?

  Oh yeah.

• 15:52Ed Mylett?

  And these are real decisions.

• 15:54Robert O'Neill?

  And it was just, it wasn't fear on this one.

• 15:56Ed Mylett?

  Is that right?

• 15:57Robert O'Neill?

  It was focus. And even when we launched, it wasn't the, uh, the, cause we'd been to war, every single guy had hundreds of missions.

• 16:04Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Robert O'Neill?

  But before this one, we all hugged each other and it just.

• 16:06Ed Mylett?

  Did you really?

• 16:06Robert O'Neill?

  Oh yeah.

• 16:07Ed Mylett?

  And you said earlier, I was gonna ask you about this, cause I say goodnight to my children.

• 16:12Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 16:13Ed Mylett?

  But I'm gonna see them again. You've literally said goodbye.

• 16:15Robert O'Neill?

  Goodbye. Looking them in the eyes.

• 16:17Ed Mylett?

  How many times have you done that?

• 16:19Robert O'Neill?

  Eleven. So, to, to, there's one daughter that was always involved. I have three daughters. I don't wanna talk about them too much for obvious reasons, but, um. One was just there all the time and, and, and when I left for that, she was seven. And I, I wrote her a letter and, but I didn't write it to the seven-year-old. I wrote it to the twenty-seven-year-old. I'm really sorry I missed your wedding. I know you were beautiful. Thank you for taking care of your sisters. What we did was noble. And just, and, and one of my regrets in life is that when I get, soon, and when I finish these letters, I wrote them to everybody in my family. I had to hand them to, I had to find someone I could trust on the base.

• 16:52Ed Mylett?

  Because the guys going with you aren't coming back either. They're dying too. Oh my gosh.

• 16:55Robert O'Neill?

  And I, uh, definite instructions, what to do, when you'll, he didn't even know what we were doing.

• 17:01Ed Mylett?

  You couldn't tell him?

• 17:02Robert O'Neill?

  But it's like, you'll know. You need to keep these. As soon as I got back, I shredded them. And I wish I would've kept them.

• 17:07Ed Mylett?

  You wish you would've kept them?

• 17:08Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah. I just didn't wanna read them again. It wasn't a, wasn't a happy thought.

• 17:11Ed Mylett?

  That's gotta be an amazing experience even to this day to have been writing those letters, thinking you were dying.

• 17:16Robert O'Neill?

  Tears are hitting the page.

• 17:18Ed Mylett?

  Is that right?

• 17:18Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah. And this is something they're gonna keep forever.

• 17:21Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh. Yeah, of course they are.

• 17:22Robert O'Neill?

  And I'm writing them, this is the last communication with them and then, but then we're on and it's, and it's just, I mean, it was. The feeling was so cool because when President George Bush addressed the world on 9/11, his quote, and I have a tattoo, it says, "Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended." And when he said "freedom will be defended," he meant everyone, and that team represented everyone.

• 17:44Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh, brother.

• 17:45Robert O'Neill?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 17:45Ed Mylett?

  Unbelievable.

• 17:46Robert O'Neill?

  That's the intensity that we've... It wasn't... We weren't scared.

• 17:49Ed Mylett?

  You weren't scared.

• 17:50Robert O'Neill?

  We were fired up.

• 17:50Ed Mylett?

  You were going there to die, but you were fired up and focused.

• 17:53Robert O'Neill?

  But we're gonna kill him too, and he deserves it.

• 17:55Ed Mylett?

  Oh my gosh. So, you get the call, and now, as I understand it, there's this helicopter ride over, and it's not a short minute.

• 18:01Robert O'Neill?

  Ninety minutes.

• 18:01Ed Mylett?

  It's ninety minutes, right? And so, there's all kinds of situations that could happen on the way over there as well.

• 18:07Robert O'Neill?

  Well, that's where the pilots come in too, because they're flying very low. And they're flying technology that they're not... You know, they've flown helicopters. They're the best four pilots in the world.

• 18:17Ed Mylett?

  In the world.

• 18:17Robert O'Neill?

  And Army, I'll give Army a shout out, they have the best helicopter pilots in the world. That's what I love about the military too. The best air force in the world is the US Air Force, the second best air force is the US Navy. The US Army, so... They're the smart guys, they're the guys that need to get us there. And we're in back, and what was really unique about this team is guys have been in combat so much, we realize you gotta get rid of the noise, get rid of the stuff that doesn't matter. Like, getting shot down, you worrying about that will not stop it, so knock it off. So, guys fell asleep, guys fell asleep on the ride to Bin Laden's house.

• 18:49Ed Mylett?

  My god.

• 18:50Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Ed Mylett?

  Oh my god. And, um... You talk about focus and...

• 18:53Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, asleep, I'm asleep, guys put their iPods in, chilling. I was counting.

• 18:57Ed Mylett?

  You counted?

• 18:57Robert O'Neill?

  Zero, zero, two thousand, thousand, zero.

• 18:58Ed Mylett?

  And now that, I've read enough about military stuff, not being a military person, that that's actually something kind of the senior guys pass down sometimes to junior guys. Did you learn that from somebody?

• 19:08Robert O'Neill?

  I learned it on my own as a sniper in Kosovo. Because, right around 9/11, we were in Kosovo, there was obviously stuff going there, Bosnian, and we... Sniper's not really a great word, but we were observing different areas. So, basically, you're hiding and you're looking through a scope for four hours on, four hours off. And as you're looking, four hours of looking, it's like, I just count.

• 19:31Ed Mylett?

  You count?

• 19:31Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 19:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so, and where, did you not then eventually sort of repeat that phrase to yourself too?

• 19:36Robert O'Neill?

  Well, I did when, because that's how I remembered it, was we were eighty minutes in, and we backed to the south.

• 19:43Robert O'Neill?

  And I was just like, you know, 456, 457, 458, Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless guy. I don't know how I remembered it.

• 19:49Ed Mylett?

  God bless you, man.

• 19:50Robert O'Neill?

  And, um, yeah, so then that's when it sort of sunk in. It's like, I'm actually on this mission.

• 19:56Ed Mylett?

  You were. That's when it sunk in.

• 19:57Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, we're going after them. And then it got better because we, we opened the door at two minutes out. They go the air crew. And that's, that's other people that don't get credit. They put their butts in the seat too. The air crew guys, we wouldn't have figured the doors out. These guys did it. So they open the door and then you see the city and there's lights. This is a resort town. There's a golf course.

• 20:16Ed Mylett?

  Is that right?

• 20:17Robert O'Neill?

  And, and it sort of hit me and I was like, this is some serious Navy SEAL shit. We're about to... Yeah, we're like, and then everything was great. And then it all hit the fan. Helicopter crashed, landed in the front yard.

• 20:29Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 20:29Robert O'Neill?

  And...

• 20:30Ed Mylett?

  Did you know that though?

• 20:31Robert O'Neill?

  No.

• 20:31Ed Mylett?

  You didn't know that. So this be, everyone understand this. So the helicopter in front of you crashed. This was clearly not part of the plan.

• 20:38Robert O'Neill?

  It was a crash landing.

• 20:39Ed Mylett?

  Crash landing. It crashed on the wall or something, didn't it?

• 20:42Robert O'Neill?

  The pilot was so good that in less than a second, he realized he couldn't hover. Then he realized if he tries to power up, he explained this to me. I'm not a pilot. That if he tries to power up, it's going to roll and everyone dies. He knew if he spun it, he could put the tail on the wall and pin it to the...

• 20:55Ed Mylett?

  That's unreal.

• 20:56Robert O'Neill?

  And he did it like that. Saved everyone's life.

• 20:58Ed Mylett?

  That's un...

• 20:59Robert O'Neill?

  You know what's funny too is we, we practiced fast roping, which is, you know, they put the rope out and you slide down like a fireman's pole. So much that like my tendons were done.

• 21:07Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 21:08Robert O'Neill?

  We practiced fast roping more than I've ever trained. The only person to fast rope on the bin Laden mission was the pilot. Because when he crashed it, he had to get the rope and slide his ass down.

• 21:15Ed Mylett?

  Oh my God.

• 21:16Robert O'Neill?

  But so that happened and then our pilot saw that. We didn't...

• 21:19Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you didn't know.

• 21:20Robert O'Neill?

  We didn't know. And so he, our plan was they were going to put our snipers and our dog Cairo outside. And then they're going to put us up on the rooftop.

• 21:28Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 21:28Robert O'Neill?

  And we knew our team would be coming from the bottom. We're from the top. We're going to get them. That way he can't get out. That's the perfect plan.

• 21:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 21:33Robert O'Neill?

  Never happened. Our pilot saw that and as we were going to lit, he put right back down. And just because of the effective communication, non-verbal communication, I guess we're getting out here. I remember putting my right foot on the ground and saying, I guess we start the war from here.

• 21:46Ed Mylett?

  My gosh.

• 21:47Robert O'Neill?

  And then we go to the northeast corner. We knew the place inside and out. It was it was nice that we trained so much because we knew everything about it. We knew there was a double door on the northeast corner, so we went over that. Our breacher took, I think, a seven-foot charge of C6, put it on the door, and he blew it and it opened like a tin can, but there's a brick wall behind it. So it's a fake, fake door. And the breacher actually said, "Fail breach. This is bad." And I said, "No, this is good. That's a fake." He's in there.

• 22:13Ed Mylett?

  Why is it good? Oh, it's good because that means he is here.

• 22:15Robert O'Neill?

  They're faking a door. He's there.

• 22:15Ed Mylett?

  That means this dude's here.

• 22:16Robert O'Neill?

  And it was funny. We actually, we talked about senses of humor. We joked about crap like that. Like, what if we get in the house and the hallway gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and also the door is this big? And you're like, "Oh, Bin Laden, you..."

• 22:27Ed Mylett?

  But you're, there's not a lot of that going on. So on the way over, there's no rah rah session on the way over. Everyone's getting in their focus. They're sleeping. They're counting.

• 22:36Robert O'Neill?

  I had one of my guys say, um, you know, I'm not nervous. We do this every night. We fly somewhere, we fuck with some people, we fly back. He just goes, "This is a longer flight."

• 22:45Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so this is the wrong door.

• 22:47Robert O'Neill?

  Now, when we got to this point, we heard the helicopter saying, we thought they were saying, "Dash one going around. Dash one going around." Meaning they came in to hover, and this dash one were dash two, and they took fire, so we thought they were going around. Racetrack, reattack. But what they were saying was dash one going down.

• 23:02Ed Mylett?

  Down, down, down.

• 23:03Robert O'Neill?

  So we said to them, because we thought they were flying, we're just, okay, there's another, there's a carport is what we called it. Another double door that we knew worked, because the imagery showed them driving in and out of it. And we said, "All right, we're gonna blow the carport now." And they said, "Don't blow it. We'll just open it."

• 23:17Ed Mylett?

  The other guys, because they're inside now?

• 23:19Robert O'Neill?

  But we didn't know that, and it didn't make sense. And the door opened, and a thumb comes out. Now, this is another point in life. Um, it didn't make sense why they're there, but that doesn't matter, because they're there. We'll just, we'll just, let's deal with the problem. We'll talk about it later. Worrying about how this happened, we're just here. So we started going in. None of us, well, I didn't and a couple of other guys on the helicopter, we didn't know they crashed, but they're in there. So we start, now, my guys have been in gunfights, they already killed three of the terrorists before I got in there. And I was fortunate because of my position now, I'm in the back, I get, I have a front row seat to the coolest mission in modern history.

• 23:52Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 23:53Robert O'Neill?

  So we go in and we're looking down a long hall, we're in Bin Laden's house.

• 23:56Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 23:57Robert O'Neill?

  And we're like looking around for bombs and stuff, when's it gonna blow up?

• 23:59Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 24:00Robert O'Neill?

  And, but I was so impressed, my guys were so cool, no one, no one cared about the bombs, they're, they're, they're doing their job. And I, I remember thinking how, how cool they are, and then just thinking, slow is smooth, smooth is fast, watch these guys work. And as I'm thinking this, I ducked into a room to look down the hallway, cause don't stand in the hallway, they'll shoot down the hallway. The guy next to me said, helicopter crashed. And now I'm thinking, we had two big helicopters, two Chinooks, 45 minutes behind us, full of other SEALs.

• 24:26Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 24:27Robert O'Neill?

  In case we need to, whatever.

• 24:29Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 24:29Robert O'Neill?

  So I'm assuming they crashed, they got shot down, cause they're not stealth helicopters, so I, I said, what helicopter crashed? And he goes, bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard, you walked right past it.

• 24:38Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 24:39Robert O'Neill?

  And as I'm processing this, one of our snipers from my helicopter, he ran, he was running around the entire compound to, to keep a perimeter, he had a dog with him and a, and a dog handler. And he got to that famous spot where the, the tail is hanging over.

• 24:52Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 24:52Robert O'Neill?

  And he came over the radio, and he didn't know it crashed, and he said, guys, be on alert, they are definitely ready for us. They have a soup, they have a training mock-up of our super-secret helicopter in the front yard. And there's a pause.

• 25:04Ed Mylett?

  No way.

• 25:05Robert O'Neill?

  And the boss goes, no you jackass, that's ours, we crashed.

• 25:09Ed Mylett?

  No way.

• 25:09Robert O'Neill?

  And he comes over and goes, yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

• 25:13Ed Mylett?

  My guys.

• 25:14Robert O'Neill?

  And I'm in the house like, what are we talking about right now?

• 25:16Ed Mylett?

  And so you're hearing this, you're looking down this hallway, probably at the end of that hallway somewhere is Osama Bin Laden, right?

• 25:22Robert O'Neill?

  Well, down the hallway is going to be a stairwell.

• 25:24Ed Mylett?

  A stairwell, what's your heart rate right now?

• 25:26Robert O'Neill?

  There's, um, fine. We're good. Are you serious? Yeah, we've been in... Because of your preparation? Well, yeah, we've been in so many fights before, it's like you didn't really get adrenaline. You're more aware, but it's just more exciting. It's not, I'm not scared. Okay. At this point, but there's, there's, there's a, there's a series of emotions that happen right here. Cause the female analyst who found Bin Laden said, "I don't know what the inside of the house looks like, but you will find some stairs. And when you find the stairs, you will run into Khalid Bin Laden, who's 20, 20 years old, his son. And, and here's how cool she was. She said, um, "That will be the last line of defense. If you eliminate that threat, you will get a shot at the big guy." That's awesome. Okay. So, um, we got in through the door, they breached it, we're going up the stairs. And I'm about eight guys, eight guys back, so I'm still in the back.

• 26:11Robert O'Neill?

  They saw Khalid, he was armed, and he ducked behind a banister. Now, it's dark, it's very quiet, we don't talk to each other. And there's a guy up front, the point man. And, um, normally in a, in an urban environment, in a house, fighting upstairs, I'm gonna grab all the guys back and let like two or three handle it. Cause if they chuck a grenade, they come down, don't fight up. And, um, uh, but now I'm like, I'm gonna die anyway. And I gotta, I gotta watch this, I gotta see how he, is he gonna pin the thing? Was he gonna run at him? And we're just sitting there, and he, he whispered to Khalid. He said, "Khalid, come here, Khalid, come here." In two different languages, uh, he knew come here in, in, in, uh, Urdu and Arabic. Is that why he was where he was? No, he just was that smart of an operator. And that confused Khalid, so Khalid leaned his head over to ask what? And he shot him.

• 26:56Robert O'Neill?

  Oh my gosh. I never would've thought of that. My gosh, that's brilliant. That was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life up until about a minute later. What's about to happen, right? So, we go up the stairs, stepped over Khalid. Um, and then we got to the second floor, and then there's a final stairwell going up. The point man stayed there staring, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna keep point, keep security. And other guys are gonna clear the second floor, cause you don't wanna move past it, clear that. And then that's, everyone in front of me, and I'm the last guy, I ended up what we call the two men. So, the one man's there, I'm the two man. And that's when I put my hand on his shoulder, cause his job is to look forward. My job is to look behind us. And when we have enough guys, I will squeeze you, so you know without looking, we're, it's time to go. But it's just us. Wow. We're out of guys. We don't have enough guys in a house this big.

• 27:39Robert O'Neill?

  And he started talking. He's like, hey, we gotta go. We gotta get up there because he's there's a curtain at the top of the stairs and he's seeing people moving behind it. They've gotta be suicide bombers. Maybe we can beat him. Maybe we can beat him. So he's convincing me, we gotta go. And finally, and I don't know what he was thinking, he's just a complete badass. But I wasn't thinking bravery. I'm thinking, alright, we're gonna get blown up now and I'm tired of thinking about it. Let's get it over with. And so I squeezed him. Went up the stairs. Let's go. Let's go. Him and me. Went up the stairs, he opened the curtain and there was two or three people that turned out to be women, but when they're suicide bombers, it doesn't matter. So he jumped on them and he tackled them. He's dying. He's jumping on the grenade. He thinks he's dying. He's jumping on the grenade. He's absorbing, absorbing as much of the blast as he can for the guy behind him. He

• 28:23Robert O'Neill?

  didn't know it was me. So because, and this is simply how I got there, because he went that way, my job is to go that way, based on our tactics. I wasn't, I wasn't bravado. I just turned and there's Osama Bin Laden standing there. And he's got his hands on his wife's shoulders and he's sort of pushing her. I don't know what he's doing, but when I go through the, the rules of engagement, the little levels escalation of force, I can close my eyes and see it. It's, he's taller than I thought, he's skinnier than I thought, that his beard is shorter and gray. That's his nose, that is Bin Laden. He's not surrendering. He's a, he's a threat. I need to kill him. And the way you had, and I've gotten a little criticism about, well, you shot him in the face and what about recognition? People that say that, and I have never dealt with a suicide bomber. I've dealt with suicide

• 29:08Robert O'Neill?

  bombers very fast, very sudden, loud, scary and permanent. So I shot him in the face twice, shot him again. And I moved his wife. Why do you have his hands on her shoulders? I don't know. I, I don't know if he was using it as a shield. I don't know if he was confused. I don't know. But I moved his, his wife to the bed to sit her down. And when I looked over, his, his two-year-old son was standing there. And as a father, I remember thinking, this poor kid has nothing to do with this and he shouldn't have seen that. So I picked him up. Oh my gosh. And I put him next to his, my other Navy SEALs are now coming in the room. And that's when it hit me. So I'm, I'm standing there and a buddy of mine saw me just, and it's kind of depicted in the movie. It's pretty funny. They came, he came up to me and he said, are you, are you good? And I said, no. What do we do now?

• 29:53Robert O'Neill?

  I'm not gonna daze and he said, uh, he laughed, he smiled, this big smile, and he goes, "Now we go find the computers, we do this every night." And I went, "Yeah, you're right, I'm back, holy shit." And he goes, "Yeah, you just killed Osama Bin Laden, man, your life just changed." Oh, that was that, and then we get back to work and, and it was just awesome because how cool the guys are, it's not like, "Hey, this guy killed Bin Laden," no one cares.

• 30:13Ed Mylett?

  No one cares.

• 30:13Robert O'Neill?

  We got him.

• 30:14Ed Mylett?

  We got him.

• 30:14Robert O'Neill?

  But then the emotions were not bravery, let's get it over with, to complete shock, to now, "We might live."

• 30:22Ed Mylett?

  We might live.

• 30:23Robert O'Neill?

  We might get to see our kids again.

• 30:25Ed Mylett?

  Look at your face right there, that's the first time your face changed.

• 30:28Robert O'Neill?

  So, we gathered the stuff, they had about three offices in the second floor, we're gathering everything from anything electronic, smashing, uh, hard drives to get, or smashing towers with hard drives, anything. And then, we put him in a body bag, uh, myself and three other guys walked him out.

• 30:43Ed Mylett?

  You walked him out?

• 30:44Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, we carried him out.

• 30:46Ed Mylett?

  Can we go back for a second?

• 30:47Robert O'Neill?

  Sure.

• 30:47Ed Mylett?

  I just want to ask you, when you shot him, I'm just curious, there's this moment, so, you, it's him.

• 30:53Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 30:53Ed Mylett?

  You've got your finger on a trigger, I suppose, is there any, can you remember? Can you process, was there any emotion at that time, any thought in your mind, or are you just executing what you've been prepared to do?

• 31:03Robert O'Neill?

  I was, um, I had a feeling he was off to the right when I turned, and when I saw him, had he, like, had no shirt on and surrendering, he's getting taken alive.

• 31:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 31:15Robert O'Neill?

  But there's just, there is such a, suicide bombers have, I mean terrorists have less than a second to convince you not to kill him.

• 31:22Ed Mylett?

  Of course.

• 31:22Robert O'Neill?

  And it's just, it's one of those things, it's a different dynamic.

• 31:24Ed Mylett?

  You get into rush at that point, does your adrenaline finally kick in in these moments, or are you just executing what you're prepared to do?

• 31:30Robert O'Neill?

  It was just to do what we're doing, the emotions came, you know, ten seconds later.

• 31:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 31:34Robert O'Neill?

  So, um, yeah.

• 31:35Ed Mylett?

  So you're, now you're like, "We might get out of here."

• 31:37Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, now let's find the stuff as quick as we can and leave.

• 31:39Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 31:39Robert O'Neill?

  So we find the stuff, we brought him out, um...

• 31:41Ed Mylett?

  You carry him out of there?

• 31:42Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, we actually carried him out and put him at the feet of the sniper who initiated the fire, rescuing Richard Phillips, which is really cool. And then, I remember actually running back in the house, um, and saying, "Guys, it is time, we have got to leave, forget about the women and children, let's go." Cause we had the guns with us, we took the guns that we found.

• 31:58Ed Mylett?

  Good.

• 31:59Robert O'Neill?

  And then we get in helicopters. And when we got out there, there was a dude that was tweeting, a Pakistani dude. He's outside live tweeting and you can, I forget his name, but you can still see it on the internet. Okay. And he's saying stuff like, "Why are, why are the Pakistanis doing military drills on a Sunday night?" No way. And I'm looking at this guy, his face is lit up with his phone. And normally in a combat zone, Iraq, Afghanistan, if someone's outside of a target with a phone out, Yeah. You shoot them because they're setting off a car bomb. Yeah. But I looked at this guy and I'm like, "They have no idea we're here." No way. We, yeah. So then we get in the helicopters and we fly out. It's not the same helicopter. No, it's different. And the guys that I talked about that I thought got shot down came in to get us. Which is awesome. Okay. SEALs getting SEALs. Yeah.

• 32:39Robert O'Neill?

  So we get on the helicopter, I'm sitting on top of the, the sniper that, with the Captain Phillips thing. Well, he was cool too, because he had a little, a problem dealing with that, something that, um, high profile after he killed, you know, and you know, there's jealousy in there with guys at that level. And I, I kept telling him, "Man, you are a hero. Don't listen to the negativity. You're a hero." And, and, uh, like I would always give him Copenhagen. I used to dip at the time. So now I'm laying on top of him and I'm still processing what just went down. He hands me Copenhagen and says, "Hey, have one of mine. Now you know what it's like to be a hero." That's freaking believable, brother. The SEAL next to me, from the other SEAL team that came to get us, he, I know him well. He's from Manhattan.

• 33:22Robert O'Neill?

  And he asked me the first question that every Navy SEAL asks when they found out about the mission. He said, "Who got him?" And I said, "I did." And he said, "On behalf of my family, thank you." Oh my God. Now we're flying out. And, and you realize we got 90 minutes. And you're still in their airspace. Well, we just took off. We have not, 90 minutes. Yeah, you're in Pakistani airspace though when you're flying out, right? But if we cross the border in 90 minutes, we have 50 years of life. So we take off, everyone starts to watch us, no one's talking. You're just looking at your watch. 10 minutes. It's been 20 minutes, it's been 30 minutes, it's been 40 minutes. And then you start to think of like the no hitter you're watching get pitched at Yankee Stadium, top of the six. I'm not going to say anything, but... Fifty minutes, sixty, seventy, eighty. And then, I love sports analogies.

• 34:07Robert O'Neill?

  I was, it's like Miracle on Ice, when you can hear the crowd counting down, when the Americans are beating the Russians. Lake Placid, ten, nine. And then the pilot came over the radio, as cool as pilots are, and he said, "All right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're gonna be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan." My god. So then we cheer, and then we get back. We land, the other guys came in, because they had to stop and refuel the other stealth bird. They land, we're all there, no one's hurt. Oh my gosh. I had a brief talk with the, here's my one problem with the movie, Zero Dark Thirty. At the end of the movie, they, um, they have the woman that found him go up to the body, and she gets emotional. And she cries, and she leaves. That's not what happened. We get back, I'm talking to the point man.

• 34:49Robert O'Neill?

  We, um, kind of debrief each other on what the hell happened on those stairs, because it's him and me. Yeah. And then he goes, "Well, hey, there she is." Um, you, you need, he goes, "You need to give her something, because you own this." This is what he said. So we walk over, and I pulled the magazine out of my gun, this is holding the bullets that killed Bin Laden. I jacked the last one out, and I said, "Do you have room for this in your backpack?" And she looked up, cool as ever, she goes, "Yeah, I think so." Then, we were the ones that walked her over to the body. And as we're walking over, and starting to sink in that, um, that, um, this woman gave her life for him. She, no husband, no kids, twenty hour days for years to find this guy. Then, it's like, well, this is historic, too. This is like Iwo Jima.

• 35:31Robert O'Neill?

  This is Norman, this is Washington crossing the Delaware, when he, to fight the Hessians. So I gotta say something cool. So we walk over, and we look down, and all I said was, "Is that your guy?" She looked down for a second and a half, and said, "Well, I guess I'm out of a fucking job." Did she really say that? Yeah. Isn't that awesome? Come on! That's how cool she was. This is the best story I've ever heard. No, no, it's the best story of all time. So we, here's the- It's the best story of all time. Thank you. I mean- Thank you. It's incredible, what happened. And I got, and what's cool is, I just got to watch everything. Like, the guys were working. I turned a corner, shot three times, and, and we left. Well, brother, okay. You should've seen, you should've seen those guys breaking those doors down. So cool. But we, so, one quick thing, just about the families, because, you know, we got back to see the kids.

• 36:16Robert O'Neill?

  We were, uh- A year to the day after the Bin Laden raid, I had my kids at Great Wolf Lodge, which is a water park.

• 36:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 36:24Robert O'Neill?

  And we have the news on, one year anniversary, we're all getting changed to go swim, have a great day, and they got beer there, so I'm excited.

• 36:30Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Robert O'Neill?

  And the news is on, and they said, okay, it's the one year anniversary of the night Bin Laden was killed, so we're taking viewer email right now, the best story of where you were when you found out Bin Laden was dead.

• 36:42Ed Mylett?

  Come on!

• 36:42Robert O'Neill?

  Tell us, and my daughter flipped out, she goes, "Oh my god, dad, you've got to email him, and tell him you were in the bedroom."

• 36:48Ed Mylett?

  I was in the bedroom. Oh my gosh, brother. I'm just, it's, look, I've sat across from a lot of people, and I've heard a lot of stories. I mean, even look at our guys, it's just like, it's just unreal. And the way you tell it with such incredible humility is just beyond belief. And I understand clearly that this would not have happened just with you. It was obviously all the preparation, the intelligence, the team building, all of those things. But it's, uh, it's, uh, it's hard even for me to process how humble you are about having, I mean, first I want to thank you.

• 37:21Robert O'Neill?

  It's an honor.

• 37:22Ed Mylett?

  On behalf of all of these families who lost so many people. And, um, it's just unreal to me that the caliber of man that's involved in this mission, and how humble they are about it, just absolutely blows my mind. I'm looking at even our folks, it's just unreal. And to this day, that you still have this sense of humility about it.

• 37:41Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, well, I mean, it was, it was obvious that the team, the people that found him, the pilots, like, I just, like, the guys that went in, I mean, we're smart enough to carry guns and a sledgehammer. And we got, I mean, I mean, obviously, I'm down talking that, but they, the guys there were just, the team was incredible.

• 37:56Ed Mylett?

  Who thinks that this guy walks into a military recruiting office, is going to go into a different branch of the military, can't swim, ends up becoming a SEAL, ends up doing 400 different combat missions, probably the most significant of all of them. Is this one and you end up being the man God called on, whoever called on to be the point man to end this man's life is just unfreaking believable.

• 38:20Robert O'Neill?

  It's a crazy story. It's to the point now too with, it's like, there's no way we did that. I just know the story.

• 38:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Is that what it is for you?

• 38:27Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, it's, we, how did that happen? I can close my eyes and see it. I can see Osama Bin Laden anytime I want. I can close my eyes and smell the stairs. What it was like going up that last few steps of life. But then getting life afterward.

• 38:40Ed Mylett?

  When you squeeze this man, you're probably dying.

• 38:43Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 38:43Ed Mylett?

  Right?

• 38:44Robert O'Neill?

  We're gonna blow up. They're gonna blow us. They're waiting for us. They're baiting us in. That's, that's when they're setting off the housebound improvised explosive device. That's, this is it. I'm done, I'm done worrying about it.

• 38:53Ed Mylett?

  It's interesting for me. It's a bizarre takeaway of the things I'm listening to your story. And obviously I can't relate to any of it because I'm not that caliber of a man. I, my emotions wouldn't be as calm. I don't have your preparation. I don't have your mindset. I don't have your background. It's interesting that the point that still gives me fear is I hear the story. I'm just gonna, maybe no one's told you this before, is just a regular guy, right? Is now he's dead.

• 39:15Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Ed Mylett?

  Right? My fear level almost increased there oddly. So like you were executing a plan prior. Now he's dead. The part that you said that, you know, we might really live, that was the part where just for me, my fear went up like, now we're in this house, clearly this event's taking place. Probably someone knows this has been happening. There's a clock ticking.

• 39:36Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 39:36Ed Mylett?

  Then I'd be, I'd be more, I'd be afraid when I got on the helicopter.

• 39:39Robert O'Neill?

  Oh yeah.

• 39:40Ed Mylett?

  And then you get ready. Now I'm, the unknown's happening too.

• 39:43Robert O'Neill?

  I have heard stories and again, probably classified, I don't know the truth, but I have heard stories that they did have air support. Um.

• 39:50Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 39:51Robert O'Neill?

  Helping us get back. We didn't know that.

• 39:52Ed Mylett?

  You didn't know it.

• 39:52Robert O'Neill?

  I knew there were jets on the border, but that's not gonna help us back here. But, but I think if, if an American in an F-15 lights up a Pakistani guy in an F-16, I think that he'll turn around. But I don't know, but.

• 40:05Ed Mylett?

  Let's, let's take away some lessons from all of this. It's the best story I've ever heard and thank you for sharing it with me. I feel blessed that I'm with you.

• 40:11Robert O'Neill?

  Thank you.

• 40:11Ed Mylett?

  Um, I mean that. I want, can I ask you some hard things?

• 40:14Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, absolutely.

• 40:15Ed Mylett?

  Just, I'm just curious of your.

• 40:16Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, that's the best time.

• 40:16Ed Mylett?

  I'm a curious, curious of your opinion of a few things and I've, I've just always wondered this. Um, are you, uh, you, I did not know that you showed her his body. That's fascinating to me.

• 40:29Ed Mylett?

  When I heard the whole story of what happened there, the part of me that went, "That sounds odd to me," was the fact that he was dumped in the ocean afterwards.

• 40:37Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 40:37Ed Mylett?

  Can you confirm that?

• 40:38Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, well-

• 40:39Ed Mylett?

  And do you, or do you not know?

• 40:41Robert O'Neill?

  We gave him, in Bagram Airfield, to some of our army counterparts. That brought out and put him, put him to sea. And I've seen the coordinates. I wasn't there for the burial, but I have heard from people that it definitely happened.

• 40:55Ed Mylett?

  So you believe that story?

• 40:56Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, yeah, 100% I believe it.

• 40:58Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 40:58Robert O'Neill?

  It's just interesting why we would do that because they said they didn't want a shrine to Bin Laden, but if you do a little research and realize he was a Wahhabist, they don't do shrines. They don't do names on, on, on anything because you, you do not have a shrine to false idols. It's just Allah. They don't, that's why you can't even draw a picture of Muhammad, because he's not Allah. He's a messenger.

• 41:19Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 41:19Robert O'Neill?

  And that's, so that, I don't know. Now, we do have pictures. There are a lot of pictures and they're in a file cabinet in Langley. And I really hope they get released.

• 41:28Ed Mylett?

  Is that right?

• 41:28Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:28Ed Mylett?

  So someday, at some point, that won't be classified stuff and somebody will see it?

• 41:32Robert O'Neill?

  Okay. Someone will need to get elected.

• 41:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Robert O'Neill?

  Or something, at a show.

• 41:35Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 41:36Robert O'Neill?

  But they're definitely, and I, I mean, I've seen the pictures. I know people in Congress who've seen the pictures.

• 41:41Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 41:42Robert O'Neill?

  They're, they're real. The body thing, I did just simply because I didn't see it, but I know it happened.

• 41:45Ed Mylett?

  Okay, you know it happened. And then the second thing I'm just curious about, this is a hard question because, and I'm not going to debate you on it or anything like that. I'm just curious of your opinion because you and I were talking off-camera about our political beliefs. We both have some really conservative beliefs and some pretty liberal beliefs. Both of us do, right? We're not one way or the other, but I'm curious that the story that you hear is that there was probably some enhanced interrogation stuff that may have led to the intelligence. A, do you believe that's true?

• 42:11Robert O'Neill?

  I know it is.

• 42:11Ed Mylett?

  That is true. And so how does that paint your feelings about those tactics going? Because right now, and then when this release will be a little bit after, but this is a pretty, it's a prominent thing right now in the media right now with a lady heading into the CIA and her taking a lot of flak for those techniques that probably produced the story you just told me. How do you feel about that?

• 42:31Robert O'Neill?

  Enhanced interrogation works. And it's administered by doctors. It's not like they have them in a cage and someone's whipping them. They're stress position, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding. Okay, that's SIR school for us. Survival evasion resistance escape. They teach you what it's like. And the thing about waterboarding not being torture is that as soon as you decide, it all ends and there's no damage. It just really, really sucks. But you figure out, well, if I just tell them stuff, they're gonna not do it. Now torture doesn't work, and I'll admit that. Because it's so... But torture's power drills and blowtorches.

• 43:03Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 43:04Robert O'Neill?

  And you're saying anything to make them stop. With waterboarding, it's just over and you're good. And then you have tea. That's it. And even guys like... I know the doctor who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... And these leaders in Al Qaeda, don't get me wrong, they're very charismatic. And their people love them, and they're true believers.

• 43:22Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 43:22Robert O'Neill?

  They're doing it for religious reasons.

• 43:24Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 43:24Robert O'Neill?

  And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said to Dr. Mitchell, "I don't know why you guys think you can just come in here and bring cookies and win hearts and minds." He explained to them that this is what we're doing. Like, he cut off Daniel Pearl's head with these blessed hands. Is the way he said it. And because he's going to heaven. And it's a very selfish thing to do. And he even asked him to the point where, "Why do the senior leaders never blow themselves up? Why is it always the junior guys?" And he said, he explained it, it's almost like a pyramid scheme. Where if you can convince someone to do it, you get more of their heaven.

• 43:56Ed Mylett?

  Is that right?

• 43:56Robert O'Neill?

  I started calling it Amway for Allah. Or something like that. But he's like, "We believe." This is what...

• 44:02Ed Mylett?

  They actually believe this?

• 44:03Robert O'Neill?

  Yes, but waterboarding works. And it led to Bin Laden.

• 44:05Ed Mylett?

  And had they captured you while you were there, you probably weren't gonna just be waterboarding.

• 44:09Robert O'Neill?

  No.

• 44:09Ed Mylett?

  Right?

• 44:10Robert O'Neill?

  If they captured... Well, we have...

• 44:11Ed Mylett?

  And I don't mean by just waterboarding. But there's probably something coming far more severe for you guys.

• 44:15Robert O'Neill?

  We have a saying that in gunfights, save at least one bullet for yourself. Because you do not want to get captured. I mean, just cutting your head off is a nice way out. They're sadistic. I don't even like thinking about it.

• 44:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you're making me think about it as you say, which by the way, makes the story more compelling when you squeeze him. Because there's all kinds of things that could happen. You could have been blown up there, you could have been captured. It's unbelievable. So, thank you so much. Now, I want to continue the conversation a little bit because you have a chance. This is team building.

• 44:46Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Ed Mylett?

  Okay. This is leadership. This is execution. So, there's all kinds of people in the business space that can tell you some... It's sort of silly even to say right now. Some theories about how to build a team and how to execute and how to prep. And then there's like real world business application. And then there's like real world, change the world, team building, business preparation and execution of a plan, which is what you've been a part of. And so, talk a little bit for a second. First off, in your case, they can learn from you. In other words, you don't have to just watch this interview. They can get access to you. You can come and tell them the different venues just for a second. I want to make sure they know. One is your book, right? That's a huge place. Second place, those, you can come speak.

• 45:28Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 45:29Ed Mylett?

  And when he speaks, just so you know, he's not only a great speaker, but like when you listen to him speak, you're going to write pages of stuff. It's not just like anecdotal stories like you've just heard. Every story is related to a point of building a team. So, how can they, how do they find you to speak, number one? And where do they find you on social media as well?

• 45:50Robert O'Neill?

  I work with leading authorities out of Washington DC. So, that's leading authorities, I believe, or L authorities.com. Leading authorities, Google search will do that. Robert J O'Neil.com, because if it's not a keynote presentation, and you know, I do stuff, I show up for workshops or even dinners just to stand around and talk. So, Robert J O'Neil.com is there. And then the social media is the funny one.

• 46:12Ed Mylett?

  It's so funny.

• 46:13Robert O'Neill?

  It's McHoya. M-C-H-O-Y-A-H. And the reason it's McHoya, the reason it's McHoya is because in SEAL training, people say, "Boo-ya."

• 46:21Robert O'Neill?

  You stop saying it when you're done with training, just like shipmate. I love the word shipmate, but you say it all the time. But anyway, Mick Houya is the Irish Houya. O'Neill's Irish and Mick Houya's the Irish Houya. And some buddies of mine convinced me to get on Twitter just because the seven of us could mess with each other. And tweet stuff out with seven followers and then my name leaked. It's Kylian bin Laden. I woke up with like 15,000 followers. It's like, alright, I guess I'm keeping Mick Houya.

• 46:42Ed Mylett?

  By the way, it's entertaining and informative social media too. You need to follow him.

• 46:46Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, it's more entertainment than anything. I'm not...

• 46:49Ed Mylett?

  I would agree with that. This is informative. That stuff's more entertaining, but it's awesome stuff.

• 46:53Robert O'Neill?

  I use it on long flights to keep myself entertained.

• 46:55Ed Mylett?

  It's so good and your content, like for me, you know, I've been in this space for a long time. For me to honestly tell you, like, I really learn things when someone speaks. I really learn things because I believe, like if I go to a gym, I want to be trained by someone who's fit. I've always think it's funny when I go to a gym and the trainer there isn't in shape themselves. Or I want a business mentor, but they're not successful or wealthy themselves. Like, show me your results. I think we can safely say that you understand leadership, team building and execution of a plan and preparation.

• 47:27Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, and that was just because of my mentors that I had working places because I would, even the first few gunfights I was in, watching my senior guys, senior Navy SEALs, how cool they were. And I was like, well, I want to be that cool. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I want to do what he does. I want to learn from him. What are his habits? And...

• 47:43Ed Mylett?

  What is different about, be real for a second here. Take the humble hat off. Marcus Luttrell, yourself, the SEAL who was in front of you, any of the SEALs on this raid, any of them anywhere. What, because you meet, you know those guys and then you know other guys. You went to high school with a really good dude, right?

• 48:01Robert O'Neill?

  I do.

• 48:02Ed Mylett?

  What's the difference?

• 48:03Robert O'Neill?

  The difference is, I think the thought that every day I get to go to work with people who are better than me and I'm not going to undermine them. I'm gonna try to beat them. And a lot of, they were, I mean, these are complete alpha guys, but they knew that it was important as a team to be nice to each other, be good to each other. I had bosses, two things, one, my bosses would say is, he'd say please and thank you. You don't need to say that in the military. And he would always say, nobody ever worked for me. They were with me. And just the, that's the mentality of a team that it's almost like, I mean, it's weird because guys do get credit for stuff. But as long as you don't care who gets credit, as long as the team succeeds, that's kind of the mentality. And they, I mean, guys show up, show up on time, stay late, and the gear is always right. They're just, they're meticulous.

• 48:44Ed Mylett?

  Meticulous. You think that's a big difference?

• 48:46Robert O'Neill?

  That is. Well, I mean, too, with the Captain Phillips raid.

• 48:48Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Robert O'Neill?

  That team had never done a rescue. We were designed to rescue since 1980, so over 25 years it had never been done. And the snipers that took those shots, three days prior were in their beds in Virginia Beach. And their guns didn't need to be sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives, but their guns were sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives because they were prepared. It might happen. I mean, it's a long weekend. We've never done, it was my birthday when we left. I mean, I'll just take a day off and take care of my gear on Tuesday, but we didn't do that because that's, that's a shortcut.

• 49:20Ed Mylett?

  Let's talk about that for a second. I want you to picture this because these are humans. So you hear the story, and it is a movie, but it wasn't a movie when it happened. It's like a real man, he has a real family, he had a real upbringing, he has real insecurities, real weaknesses and strengths, real, I mean, even fears, right? So he's a real person like you, right? And so he's been able to achieve extraordinary things in his life. I want to take this moment now for you just to picture this for a second. Tell them the story, and I love this, about where you were and what you were doing, because it humanizes this. You know, I think people see you, and I think they think, I'm just not like him. And there are things about you that you've built, that are muscles mentally and physically you've built, that are different than other people.

• 50:05Ed Mylett?

  Many of which you're not even aware of.

• 50:07Robert O'Neill?

  Probably.

• 50:08Ed Mylett?

  Because who you are now, right? But he's also a father. He's a husband. He makes mistakes in his life.

• 50:14Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:14Ed Mylett?

  Right? He has, he's all these different things. Tell them, just picture this. You guys have all probably seen the movie Captain Phillips, right? So he was a part of that. I just want you to picture this for a second. Just think about it. You think a James Bond movie, and you think this stuff is sort of bizarre. It doesn't really work this way. And then just when you picture this, tell them where you were and what you were doing when you got the call to go do this.

• 50:34Robert O'Neill?

  It was, it was my birthday, April 10th, and it was Good Friday. And I'm at my daughter's Easter tea party at her preschool. In line, in a buffet line with sailors and Marines who have kids in the class and we're giving, we're getting cookies and cupcakes for them and bringing them tea. And I was walking over to my daughter when I got the message that uh, they didn't say it like this, we had a code, but that Captain Richard Phillips had been taken by Somali pirates and you guys are going right now. And we'd been selling this uh, technology that, like I said, we never done it, we trained for it all the time. But from the time you get the message to the time wheels up and we're going, we sold it, we'd been selling it for decades, four hours. We were wheels up in three hours and 59 minutes. Yeah, so like, we gotta make it, like, this is it.

• 51:18Robert O'Neill?

  And then uh, 15 hours and 46 minutes after I got the message, um, we're in the Indian Ocean with a full head count. 103 guys. And like, I had, but just to, just to back up, there were guys out there that were mowing their lawns when they got the call. Like, these are real guys. They can't afford the mortgage. And they're mowing their own lawn and then they're off.

• 51:39Ed Mylett?

  Unreal.

• 51:40Robert O'Neill?

  And you don't know what's gonna happen when you go over there.

• 51:41Ed Mylett?

  It's just like, it's, it's, the reason it's so inspiring for me, like, mind blowing, number one, you're carrying a little pink cupcake. 15 and a half hours later, here we go.

• 51:51Robert O'Neill?

  We're in.

• 51:52Ed Mylett?

  It's game on, right? And so, for me, it's, it's so inspiring because I do think you're a real person. Like, I do think you're a regular guy, right? And, and so, people that listen to this, if he can come from where he came from, this is crazy and it's not overstating, and I know you hate hearing this, but altered world history.

• 52:13Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, crazy.

• 52:14Ed Mylett?

  Altered world history. Right? From Montana, carrying cupcakes at his daughter's elementary school on his birthday. What could you do in your business? What could you do in your body?

• 52:28Robert O'Neill?

  You can do anything. There's a couple of sayings I love. Um, I'm all about moving forward and one of my sayings is I'm as, I'm as old as I've ever been, but I'm as young as I'll ever be. Which means life starts now, right now starts. Uh, I had an instructor before Hell Week. Hell Week is in training when you wake up on Sunday and you do Navy SEAL training until Friday. It's miserable. Like your body starts to bleed by Wednesday because you're so saturated from the ocean, right here. Mother ocean is not kind. And he gave me advice to get through Hell Week, but it's just, it's great advice for life. He said, "You are about to go to war for the first time and the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears, and everyone you know back home that told you you weren't good enough to do this. Keep your head down, keep moving forward, no matter what, never quit, you'll be fine."

• 53:12Robert O'Neill?

  That's it, and that's what he told me before Hell Week. And now that's life, keep moving forward. You're gonna make mistakes, we talked about failure. That's how you learn. And I've failed, I've fallen down, get up. Dust off, look yourself in the mirror and be honest, why did I do that? What do I learn?

• 53:27Ed Mylett?

  I don't...

• 53:28Robert O'Neill?

  But it's all good advice because it's like, you know, you're gonna screw up, tell me anyone that's not screwed up. Pretty much every day. So it's like, it's never a no fail mission, but it's like a no lose, like you win or you learn.

• 53:40Ed Mylett?

  Unreal, brother, like I don't even...

• 53:42Robert O'Neill?

  It's crazy.

• 53:43Ed Mylett?

  So let's talk about these guys that are mowing their lawns. I'll be honest with you, man, I've done a lot of interviews, I know a lot of people, I've interviewed a lot of successful people. Like, you don't catch me speechless very often, so. I want people to get access to you, I want... I think it's an amazing time in history, which hasn't existed before, where, I mean honestly, there are people driving in their car right now, working out at their gym, and they're getting access to a man who's altered world history for freaking free. And they can come here, you speak for pennies on the dollar, and be in a room with you, and meet you, and have their life altered and inspired and moved. There's never been a time in history where people who have achieved great things can say, "Hey, I'm just like you, I'm a goofball, I was at my daughter's elementary school, I make mistakes, I fall down,

• 54:28Ed Mylett?

  you know, I didn't even mean to be in the Navy SEALs in the first class." Like, it's just unreal. It ought to give you such hope and such inspiration. But I want to talk for a second about some of the good work you do, because I want people to know about this too. These guys that are mowing their lawns.

• 54:42Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 54:43Ed Mylett?

  And these men that are at their, and women by the way, who are at their daughter's elementary school and can't pay the mortgage, even sometimes active duty struggling, then leave the military. Now this man, just so you know... And I'll just say this on your behalf, um, left short of his 20 years.

• 55:01Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 55:01Ed Mylett?

  So there aren't, I believe, aren't health benefits that come your way.

• 55:05Robert O'Neill?

  Nothing.

• 55:05Ed Mylett?

  There's nothing that comes your way, which is sort of amazing to me. And I just say this on your behalf, that someone who's had 400 combat missions, has been decorated with valor as many times as you have, changed the world on multiple missions. We don't have a way to give you some, uh, health insurance and to take care of you. And so because that's the way it is, and you don't need to comment on that, I say that on your behalf. That's crazy, but because that is the way it is, you've got involved and started something charitably that helps people when they transition out to find careers. So talk to them a little bit about your foundation.

• 55:37Robert O'Neill?

  Yes, we, um, I started a foundation called Your Grateful Nation. So that's yourgratefulnation.org. And we transition the, right now, special operators because we're individualized. We're just kind of a small group. Transition them to, uh, their next career. So we find out where they want to live, the industry they want to be a part of. We'll make the introduction to that company and then we have a mentorship program, seven to nine months. And then they're trained and these employers now are saying that, um, these guys don't realize what they're bringing to the table, even without a college degree, but they're bringing the, um, stress management, problem solving, team building. Um, the one word they use all the time is the loyalty. Because they're not getting that from people with a degree right now. The colleges aren't teaching that kind of stuff.

• 56:20Robert O'Neill?

  But they get them and they put them in charge of anything, like major projects. We have guys working for Merrill Lynch. We have a guy that wanted to live in Phoenix and work for Fox Sports, he's doing that. And we're talking Green Berets, Rangers, uh, TF-160 pilots, um, Navy SEALs. And, um, so yeah, we, we, I started that because I didn't realize what I was capable of when I got out, but I learned through mentors that there's stuff out there people are interested in. And so now, and it's even amazing to talk to the guys, even the guys that retire, they're like, well, what am I qualified for? It's like you, they would almost rather go back to war than fill out a resume because war makes sense to them. But they don't realize that the combat is solving problems.

• 56:55Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 56:55Robert O'Neill?

  And that's so Your Grateful Nation would do that. The best email I get once, twice a week is when they One, tell me who they transitioned to where and then from one of the spouses saying, "Without your grateful nation, we wouldn't have gotten a second career." And they realize, the two funny things, they realize what they're worth.

• 57:10Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 57:10Robert O'Neill?

  Then they also realize what their fair share in taxes is.

• 57:12Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right. Now you're gonna learn that.

• 57:14Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah.

• 57:14Ed Mylett?

  Now you're gonna learn about all this, the rich pay, all the taxes thing. So, the amazing thing about, "Thank you for doing that work." The amazing thing about it is, these are men who are, and women who are a part of the greatest team, and then became some of the greatest on that team as special operators. Like, these are the most elite of the elite, like this gentleman across from me. So, let's finish with this, a couple tips. Thank you so much for today.

• 57:35Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, it's been great, thank you.

• 57:36Ed Mylett?

  Like, honestly. Let's talk a little bit for a second about team building, because these are things that you teach. So, there's people out there that have companies, they're watching you right now. They're gonna come have you come speak to their company. But give them a flavor for a second. What were some of the couple keys, just give us a few, there's a million probably, of building a team like the one you were part of? Is it just, it's interesting, but part of me thinks, man, like, you certainly end up with pretty damn good talent by the time you get to SEALs and step up operators. But what are some of the keys in building a team that people out there should know about?

• 58:10Robert O'Neill?

  Morale. Morale is key. That when people feel like they are part of the solution, they're gonna work harder. Effective communication. Because, a lot of people disagree with this, but I always thought that if our people know what they're doing and why. A lot of people don't want to say why, because they want to compartmentalize it. I think they should know why they're doing it. And when you're done saying what you're saying, stop saying it. The noise that comes with everything. Just get the message out there and we're good. One of my favorite quotes, I don't know where to give credit, is, "Never pass up the opportunity to shut up."

• 58:45Robert O'Neill?

  For people that lead to, they realize that a lot of the work gets done because your team is there. Like, sometimes if the bosses don't show up, the work still gets done. But if the people don't show up, not a lot of work's gonna get done, stuff like that. Be good to each other, the emotional thing, like, try not to, try to keep your emotions in check, because your body always follows your mind. And...

• 59:06Robert O'Neill?

  It's like the, say the nasty text message you want to send someone. Type it up because it's gonna make you feel better. Do not hit send for 24 hours. And if you're still mad 24 hours, it's legit.

• 59:16Ed Mylett?

  You literally should have told me that like three years ago.

• 59:18Robert O'Neill?

  Oh, I believe you. Yes, stop tweeting that.

• 59:23Robert O'Neill?

  But yeah, so just the morale being high, the emotionless conversations that hopefully you can have. The realization that your plan, the plan's not gonna work. The way Murphy shows up, anything that you do can get you killed, including nothing. Like just stuff like that.

• 59:38Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Robert O'Neill?

  And then the never quit, you know. Is it really, are you having a bad day? Are you having a bad moment? You're milking into a bad day. And the best advice I have for people is get over it. Just get, fix it and get over it.

• 59:50Ed Mylett?

  This is so gold, brother. Like, it's interesting, you talk about the why and it's like, oh, well, where's that come from? Well, you end up with the guy, the point man in front of you, or at least you're getting ready to go on the mission. Say, now tell me again, like, why are we doing this?

• 1:00:04Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:00:05Ed Mylett?

  And you told him why, and that visual of that mom.

• 1:00:08Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah. Well, we had to tell ourselves that. We had these conversations and that's it. That's why we're doing it.

• 1:00:12Ed Mylett?

  Probably of all of this, it surprises me the most that you did have some of those conversations. That and also the emotionless, another point you just made, helicopter ride over.

• 1:00:22Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 1:00:23Ed Mylett?

  Where guys are sleeping and they're getting in their state, they're getting focused, they're counting. Like, that also has application. And then over meeting, you're so right, like even in business, I watch all the time. There's this book I read called Death by Meeting. It's like when you're done saying something, stop freaking saying it and go execute, right? All right, last question.

• 1:00:43Ed Mylett?

  Don't be humble for a second.

• 1:00:45Robert O'Neill?

  Okay.

• 1:00:45Ed Mylett?

  Okay, be real with me here. What's different about men like you? In other words, if I want to be a person like you.

• 1:00:53Robert O'Neill?

  None of us, including myself, are victims. Nobody owes us anything. You can, you can get it, but you gotta go get it. And that was the key. When guys would say, "Stop being a victim."

• 1:01:06Ed Mylett?

  Hmm, in your position, I assume your brothers all come from this victim thing. Different socioeconomic backgrounds, right? Different ethnicities.

• 1:01:18Robert O'Neill?

  Yep.

• 1:01:19Ed Mylett?

  Some had great families.

• 1:01:20Robert O'Neill?

  You know what was neat about the ethnicities too is it didn't matter who you were. Eighty-five percent of you were not gonna make it. That's it. Eighty-five percent of the white guys, eighty-five percent of the black guys, you're not gonna make it.

• 1:01:33Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:01:34Robert O'Neill?

  It's crazy. The system just works that way.

• 1:01:36Ed Mylett?

  That's a pretty damn good equalizer to look past skin color, isn't it? None of us are gonna make it. Eighty-five percent of us aren't gonna make it. And we're depending on each other if we're going to make it. So it really doesn't matter what your religion, your faith, your political views are.

• 1:01:48Robert O'Neill?

  It doesn't matter.

• 1:01:49Ed Mylett?

  When you have a common purpose and a common mission and a common thing you want to accomplish. Yours was eighty-five percent of us aren't gonna make it. It's interesting how you come together. It's interesting how you gel. It's interesting how all your differences aren't differences, they're similarities. They don't care if you're gay or straight, black or white, Muslim or Christian. We come together in a mission. So that's one of the great lessons for the country too. Is that if we could unify in a common mission, a common dream, a common goal.

• 1:02:15Robert O'Neill?

  Yes.

• 1:02:15Ed Mylett?

  Most of these things you see on the news every single night where they're pitting us against each other would go away in about one second if we get a common goal and mission.

• 1:02:24Robert O'Neill?

  Well, even with, I've got a friend who did twenty years as a Navy SEAL, one of the best SEALs ever, and then is transgender.

• 1:02:31Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 1:02:31Robert O'Neill?

  And it's just funny the way people try to get a rise out of us. They're like, "What do you say to your buddy that's transgender?" You go, "I don't know, say, 'Nice tits, bro.'"

• 1:02:37Ed Mylett?

  Exactly, right. I love him, right? He contributed to the mission. And like, I hope like, probably now, it's just move forward. I didn't think I would get there. This is actually now my favorite part of the interview. Cause you can have one of the thoroughbred studs of all time. I'm one of these, the things you'd say, white, successful businessman guy. And we're both telling you that we don't care about those things. We care about coming together, making a dream happen, making the mission happen.

• 1:03:01Robert O'Neill?

  Team and mission.

• 1:03:02Ed Mylett?

  Team and the mission. So, man, I love that. Such a great lesson for you building a company, for our leaders in politics, for our people in the media. When we're chasing something in common, when there's a common mission, the differences go away. And that's what we ought to be chasing. My favorite conversation, literally.

• 1:03:18Robert O'Neill?

  That's very cool, thank you.

• 1:03:19Ed Mylett?

  Man, look.

• 1:03:20Robert O'Neill?

  It's mine too.

• 1:03:21Ed Mylett?

  All respect, thank you, brother. All respect to the people who've been on my show. I love all of them and I hope one exceeds this someday. I really do.

• 1:03:27Robert O'Neill?

  I'm not leading that way just yet.

• 1:03:29Ed Mylett?

  But as of now, and it's wonderful to hear that it's reciprocated, so brother, like, really, thank you so much.

• 1:03:35Robert O'Neill?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:03:35Ed Mylett?

  God bless you, and thank you for your service, and thanks for sharing this with the audience.

• 1:03:38Robert O'Neill?

  Absolutely, thank you for having me.

• 1:03:39Ed Mylett?

  Follow this man, Robert O'Neill, on all of his social media. Book him to speak at your gigs. Go get his book. Title of the book again is...

• 1:03:45Robert O'Neill?

  The Operator.

• 1:03:46Ed Mylett?

  The Operator. I read it in a day. One of my favorite books I've ever read. And again, I want to remind you all this too. All this comes to you for free. All I ask for is review the program, share it with people. If you're on YouTube, give it a like, but if you're on iTunes, give it a review. And every day on Instagram, when I make a post, there's a two-minute drill called the Max Out Two-Minute Drill. If you make a comment, you get engaged with hashtag Max Out. I get you a winner every day. That could be gear, it could be a coaching call with me, it might be access to one of my guests. But every day, we surprise a guest with a win. So make a comment every day on my social media. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Robert. And Max out.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  You need a wake-up call? You're in the right friggin' place. The Ed Mylett Show.