To escape, he almost by accident found himself in a Navy recruiter's office. In my yard, the Shooter told his story about joining the Navy at nineteen, after a girl broke his heart. He's played with my kids and my dogs and been a hilarious, engaging gentleman around my wife. We would end up intimately familiar with each other's lives. I didn't know him well enough then to tell whether a glass of his favorite single malt, Lagavulin, was making him less or more edgy. He stood up several times with an apologetic gripe about the heat, leaving a perspiration stain on the seat-back cushion. But the Shooter was sweating as he talked about his uncertain future, his plans to leave the Navy and SEAL Team 6. It was a mild spring day, April 2012, and our small group, including a few of his friends and family, was shielded from the sun by the patchwork shadows of maple trees. The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care. Note: A correction is appended to the end of this story. This piece was reported in cooperation with CIR. Phil Bronstein is the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently serves as executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting. This article was published in the March 2013 issue. (Originally kept anonymous to protect him and his family, "the Shooter" has since the story's publication identified himself as SEAL veteran Robert O'Neill.) In light of the controversial claims in Seymour Hersh's new story on the death of Osama bin Laden, here is "The Shooter," Phil Bronstein's definitive account of the SEAL Team 6 operation that killed the al Qaeda leader, from the March 2013 issue.
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