This book is mentioned in an article that appears today in the Journal.
The men who conducted the assault on bin Laden's compound are part of a proud tradition of service that traces its roots back to the Underwater Demolition Teams that cleared the beaches at Normandy. The SEAL teams themselves were born on Jan. 1, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy commissioned a new force of elite commandos that could operate from the sea, air and land (hence the acronym, SEALs). Though SEALs remain the nation's elite maritime special operations force, part of what Kennedy wanted and needed from them—and what the nation still asks of SEALs—is that they be a flexible force, capable of operating in any environment.
Targets vary, but the objective of the planning is always the same: accomplish the mission and bring everyone home alive.
Over time, our picture of the al Qaeda network grew more complete. More and more terrorists were revealed, and the targets became so numerous that other forces had to be recruited to take them down. I had once imagined—probably based on watching bad movies about cops battling the mafia—that somewhere we would find a hierarchical chart of al Qaeda with bin Laden sitting at the top and pictures of men like this sniper near the bottom of a pyramid. In fact, no such clear picture existed, and every piece of new information seemed to offer a different way of interpreting what we thought we knew.
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