Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette pulled back the curtain on the mission to get Osama bin Laden.
The al-Qaeda leader was killed in May 2011 in a daring special operations raid conducted by members of SEAL Team 6 flown into Pakistan by the 160th SOAR.
The raid delivered justice for the victims of 9/11 and all the men and women who deployed to war in the aftermath of that tragic day.
The full details of the raid have never been made public, and much of it remains in the shadows, despite many different narratives in the public.
Now, people are getting a light shined on what happened.
SEAL from Osama bin Laden raid reveals what happened.
Bissonnette spoke with podcaster and former DEVGRU member Andy Stumpf in an interview released on Monday, and touched on many topics.
One of the most interesting moments was when he disputed the idea bin Laden's face was completely blown apart.
"The photos, if they ever got released, I don't know, I think that would help clear some stuff up. I think you'd also see very quickly it's high forehead shots. His face is not all f***ed up. You can very clearly see his bridge of his nose, whole face, mouth, mouth structure. Easily identifiable. The idea that there were extra shots or any of this that his face was distorted. Release the photos. High forehead shots," Bissonnette told Stumpf during the interview.
The former Red Squadron Navy SEAL also touched on one of the most discussed and debated moments of the raid:
Did the pointman, whose identity has never been publicly revealed, leading up to the third deck hit Osama bin Laden and what happened after he fired?
In Bissonnette's recollection of events, the unnamed pointman, often referred to as Red, fired at the terrorist leader when he popped his head out a doorway and then followed his shots to the doorway of bin Laden's bedroom before entering.
He told Stumpf the following:
The shot that the pointman took, what SEAL out there is not going to follow his shots? Tactically, that is what we're taught. Your threat matrix, what is your biggest threat out there? Unknown male...Everybody knew bin Laden most likely lived on the third floor. [The pointman] had just eliminated Khalid [bin Laden] on the second in the landing with a gun. You have to assume, right, the guy in the third floor is armed, right? So, he takes a shot. Enough within the rules of engagement to shoot that head, and he decides to stay in the hallway? He decides to come off the known threat that he just shot at and chase women and kids? What team guy is doing that? Why? Where? And then where are the women and kids? I've heard 38 different version from other people of where the women were. The women were in the room, right? That's where the chick [Amal bin Laden] was wounded in the leg.
Women were in the room. Not out of the room...You can pull up the sketches and layout of the third floor. Right up the set of stairs, open door on the right. Shots go, right? Point man follows his shots to the doorway. He doesn't say in the hallway. He doesn't come off of where he just shot at an adult male head in bin Laden's compound in the third floor. Who is all of a sudden going to be like, 'Okay, shoot. Okay, I'm going to go check this way.' There's nobody that does that. There's not a team guy out there that does that. You follow your shots, and that's exactly what he did. He entered the room.
Another part of the interview that I found particularly interesting was Bissonnette, who is releasing a new book titled, "No Easy Way," discussing the tactics of how they went through bin Laden's compound.
Instead of it sounding like an action movie with people running all over the place and finding themselves alone, the former DEVGRU operator made it clear it was very methodical.
"The only sense of urgency was, okay, do they have [suicide vests]? Is the house rigged to blow? And are they prepping something? That's still not dictating our tactics to just sprint upstairs. So, it was slow and methodical," the former SEAL explained.