Notes on No Easy Day by Mark Owen

A friend of mine told me about No Easy Day by Mark Owen way before it got its press notoriety. The story was written by a Navy SEAL who participated in many historic missions, such as saving the hostages from the Somali pirates and the raid on Osama bin Laden. I was interested in checking it out for the details of how SEALs train and organize and less so for the political details surrounding the UBL raid. Luckily, this was how the author felt as well, as his story was direct, fact-based, and with practically no political or emotional rhetoric.

I enjoyed learning about how SEALs train, how they organize their own gear, and how they manage their attitude in the face of grueling hours and immense physical burden. The book was inspiring and gave me some good advice about perseverance, like just focusing on getting to the next meal when enduring difficult work or training. Despite the author's incredibly significant accomplishments, he remained humble throughout the entire book, and several times, he even said that when you start celebrating your own hype, that's when you're in for trouble. I like that attitude of focusing on reality and getting stuff done. I was also impressed with his immense dedication to his work and his love of it, and how that drove him to make difficult decisions for the benefit of his work. That was an example of the good/right definition of selfishness.

• Book: Men in Green Faces
  
• Read it when was kid
  
• Wanted to be SEAL
  
• Being their best
  
• Team effort
  
• Brotherhood
  
• Live a life bigger than youu
  

Prologue

• Complete trust of team
  
• Trained when Sept 11 happened
  

Ch 1 green team

• Training
  
• Simulation middle east compounds
  
• Just focus on making it to next meal
  
• Clearing rooms under stress
  
• Decided to be seal at 13
  
• Dev group
  
• Book: Black Hawk Down
  
• Fear of failure
  
• Bullshit excuses
  
• Stand ground and take responsibility
  

Ch 2 top 5 bottom 5

• Can't move without moving call
  
• Must do all in training by the book and exactly as specified
  
• Ladder rope exercise
  
• Everyone in community has reputation
  
• Shooting pool
  
• Smack talk
  
• Small community
  
• San Diego ca and Virginia beach va locations for seals
  
• Charity calendar
  
• Father taught him how to shoot
  
• Learned huge lesson once and doesn't repeat mistake
  
• Ferreting out weakest
  
• Peer rankings of best and worst
  
• Green team
  
• Mental toughness
  
• Culture of command
  
• Pages by boss
  
• Sacrifice lives for greater good
  
• He was great shooter
  

Ch 3 second deck

• First deployment
  
• 6 pages packing list
  
• Big boy rules with little management
  
• Personal locker with different kits
  
• Gerber tool
  
• Best tools and armory
  
• Afghanistan
  
• Cramped helicopter
  
• When in doubt load it out and prepare for contingencies
  
• But weigh a lot
  
• Luck played big role in first mission and that was bad
  
• Train like u fight; only use equipment u know
  

Ch 4 delta

• Calm clear decision making
  
• Operations at night from helicopters
  
• Vampire hours
  
• Always dual prime charges with two detonators
  
• One is none, two is one
  
• Saved by random mistake
  
• No more bullshit rivalries between army delta force and navy Dev crew
  
• Only 2 weeks of leave
  

Ch 5 point man

• Night operations in copters
  
• Be comfortable being uncomfortable
  
• Cold
  
• Hung out with father in Alaska
  
• Taught him to shoot and fish
  
• Pranks on team
  

Ch 6 maersk Alabama

• High altitude high opening haho
  
• Parajumps
  
• Quitting wasn't an option when was scared
  
• Somali pirates hostage situation on ship
  
• Slow Washington decisions
  
• Aerial drones
  
• Saved life 
  

Ch 7 wrong war

• Combat assault dogs
  
• Families last priority
  
• Always training or deployed
  
• Two families
  
• Loved work
  

Ch 8 goat trails

• Became leader
  
• Good planning and stealth
  

Ch 9 special dc

• Found UBL
  

Ch 10 The pacer

• Found him in Pakistan
  
• Special secret operation of dream team across orgs
  
• bin laden started al qaeda
  
• Detailed model of compound
  
• 2 helicopters for main and guest houses
  
• Pro words: 1 word messages for fast radio communication
  
• Fly to the x vs fly to the y and sneak in after walking over
  
• Construction crew built full mockup of compound
  
• Got whatever info they needed
  
• Waited on dc for approval of mission beyond planning
  
• Dress rehearsal for suits in dc
  

Ch 11 killing time

• politicians making decision
  
• Got orders to stage in Pakistan
  
• Bombing vs ground assault options
  
• Rituals to kill time, set up gear, make coffee from scratch
  

Ch 12 go day

• Set of checks of all tools
  
• Tools listed
  
• Helicopter problem
  

Ch 13 in fill

• Cleared guest house successfully after some mishaps
  

Ch 14 Khalid

• Killed bin laden son
  

Ch 15 third deck

• Took their time
  

Ch 16 Geronimo

• Had to take good photo
  
• DNA samples
  
• Saliva samples
  
• Leaders less willing to fight
  
• UBL didn't put in ammunition
  

Ch 17 x ville

• Refueling copter
  
• Helicopter crash was biggest problem
  

Ch 18 confirmation

• All came back safely
  
• CIA analysts beat him intellectually
  
• One big team
  

Ch 19 touch the magic

• Don't believe your own hype
  
• Wanted to fade out of attention
  
• Met with Obama
  

Epilogue

• Never worked in non-operational job
  
• Stepped down instead
  
• Time for his own life to take priority
  
• Live for a purpose
  
• Donate to veterans foundations like Tip of the Spear and All-In

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