Ten years have passed since a team of Navy SEALs and Army helicopter pilots flew 162 harrowing miles into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden, a daring mission that represented perhaps the U.S. military’s only pure victory in 20 years of mostly unsatisfying war.
Earlier this week, the two men at the center of ordering and overseeing the raid — former president Barack Obama and Ret. Adm. William H. McRaven — gathered at Obama’s Washington, D.C., office to reflect on the operation ahead of its 10th anniversary, which falls on Sunday.
For both men, the meeting was an opportunity to recognize those who had made the mission successful. “The number of people who operated at the very highest levels for a sustained period of time; that’s something I appreciate even more a decade later,” Obama said. Continue reading.