Caption. And on the plaque is a Home Depot tape measure. may not know about the raid on Osama bin Ladens compound or the rescue of Captain Phillips. MCRAVEN: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, even to this day, the impact of Moki Martin is with me every day. "There was a degree of coming to closure," he says. He was a Vietnam vet. General William Westmoreland joined the original firing line with William F. Buckley Jr. in 1979 for a conversation called, quote, the crisis in the US military. And of course, it started in SEAL training. And so what we had to do pretty quickly was to make sure he understood that he was a prisoner of the United States and we were going to treat him well. That was a day that I think motivated all of America to go forth and realize that we had to bring justice to bin Laden, to bring justice to Al-Qaeda and to do what we felt was right for the country. "It was hard to watch it from afar, at the White House, but at the time, because I was still broken up pretty bad, I'm not sure I could have done much to help," he says. If you can't complete a small and mundane task each morning such as making your . May 29, 2020. We had a helicopter with an optical ball on it that was providing our ISR, our video coverage, if you will. We did. His only known experience of combat before reaching flag rank came as a SEAL "task unit" leader in the Persian Gulf War. As you point out. Late in 2010, you know, we were getting ready to pull out of Iraq by early 2011, for the most part, and yet, my guys were still conducting operations in downtown Baghdad. Yeah, theres a lot of people out there that think that this was a kill only mission. And the SEALs entering the room did absolutely the right thing and shot him, not knowing whether or not he was wearing a suicide vest or what was happening at that instant. . Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by and by Corporate funding is provided by. So, yes, we believed we had bin Laden. MCRAVEN: No, I dont think that contributed to his decline. But after SEAL training, we were stationed at the same team and we became very close friends. He has unique facial characteristics. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. Admiral William McRaven should be dead by now, but he's alive, physically fit, mentally sharp and recently retired. Police in Goulburn, a city in New South . He was later memorialized in an eponymous film starring Tom Hanks. Tell me about that moment and what you heard come through the radio after that. But by then he and his young lieutenant had fallen out. I dont know, as a young boy, whether I thought I would follow in my fathers footsteps, what I knew was I loved the camaraderie. But when we were in training, he did not hesitate to pick me out of a crowd and turn me into a sugar cookie, as we say, where you roll around in the sand, and that kind of good natured harassment on a routine basis. I unzip the body bag and without getting too graphic he obviously didnt look too good, he had a couple of rounds in his head the beard was a little smaller, I think, than what we usually anticipate. You were hit by a fellow divers canopy. I can see it on the overhead surveillance. Admiral William McRaven, now retired, thought commanding the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, would be the crowning achievement of his 37 years as a Navy SEAL."I . So Im getting radio calls from the ground force commander. Meanwhile, JSOC carries on with those 2,500 commando raids a year, an average of seven per night. He was later memorialized in an eponymous film starring Tom Hanks. With her father by her side, she laughed off the injury like it was a scratch. And you think that contributed to his decline in custody? He kept tabs on the SEALs who had gone to war without him. Olson was the first Navy SEAL ever to be appointed to three-star and four-star flag rank, as well . Or, I have to be careful, Im not sure From the time the mission started I think maybe its 15 minutes when I got the call from the ground force commander, for God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. And Geronimo was the code word for bin Laden. "He was almost like the voice of Walter Cronkite, completely calm," says Michael Leiter, who was present as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. On September 1, 2014 . A decorated, veteran Navy SEAL died Sunday after a mishap during military free-fall training in Arizona, Navy officials told USNI News. The DIB, on which McRaven served, was created during the Obama administration by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter. I love this sense of kind of duty, honor and country that I saw in this greatest generation. He also survived being ripped in half by a parachute. They could see fine out of just one eye. MCRAVEN: Yeah, I mean, even to this day, the impact of Moki Martin is with me every day. Retired Adm. William McRaven and Nicholas Rasmussen, former National Counterterrorism Center director, discuss the raid on the Usama bin Laden compound in Pakistan in commemoration of the 10th . You know, when we stood up an all volunteer force, I remember thinking initially, well, this will never work. So you visited his room every day to speak with the doctor on guard. And, of course, that generation, you know, they were children of the Great Depression. And I think he was probably glad I didn't ask him. And that was pretty evident. Did we inadvertently kill people we shouldnt have killed? As they neared the release point, one of the men below McRaven drifted directly underneath. And so I proudly have the opportunity to display that tape measure at the Special Operations Command. What were you seeing? HOOVER: Admiral William McRaven, welcome back to Firing Line for a special edition episode honoring Independence Day. He was a Vietnam vet. What kind of intelligence did we get off the target? While the rest of the Pentagon is scaling back spending, special-operations forces are asking for more. Theyre all kind of crammed into this small room with General Brad Webb, who was my liaison to the White House at the time. But having been through these missions before, what I always know is, you know, you really have to sit down with the operators. Retired Adm. William McRaven earned fame for leading US special-operations forces on some of their most well-known missions. Marcinko rented Mercedes sedans with Navy funds, a friend of McRaven's says, "just because he could." Admiral, youve led sailors through harrowing missions. Duty is among the virtues that you write about in the hero code. INSKEEP: Admiral, one other thing occurs to me. You said, quote, As a commander, you would like to be in ultimate control of all of the decisions, but the reality is you cant be. Nan McRaven says. HOOVER: We all remember those images of Saddam Hussein the moment that he was captured. A lucky break came his way, it seemed, in 1982, two years after the hostage-rescue debacle. The president thanks us for the mission and then reaches behind the presidents desk and hands me a plaque. Leon Panetta, who joined the video call from CIA headquarters, told TIME's Massimo Calabresi that "all the air we were holding came out." Ill lie down next to the body just to see whether or not the remains are a little longer. William McRaven delivered MIT's 2020 Commencement address. Admiral Bill McRaven (retired) (DoD photo by Ken Moore) RELATED: NAVY SEAL WHO OVERSAW BIN LADEN RAID PENS CHILDREN'S BOOK In his speech to the graduates, O'Connor recounted how McRaven spoke about being a young SEAL officer when he was assigned to the insular, and still relatively new, SEAL Team 6 in the early 1980s. Moki, to me was this kind of quintessential Navy SEAL. Then, as commandos set explosive charges around the wounded aircraft: "We're going to destroy the helicopter.". So anybody that claims that theyve got a helmet cam video, nobody was wearing helmet cams. Kurt Ganapathy. Im ok with that. Patient and ingenious work by U.S. intelligence agencies marked a spot tentative, but more likely accurate than not on the map. Well, he pulls his parachute, and I collide with his parachute - little bit like getting hit by an air bag. According to Nan McRaven, one of two older sisters, their father Claude regaled the family with accounts of his exploits as a fighter pilot in British-built Spitfires during World War II. Ill lie down next to the body just to see whether or not the remains are a little longer. . SINGAPORE - The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) had to prise open a taxi's roof to rescue two female passengers following an accident in the early hours of Saturday morning (July 10). Routines, good routines, healthy routines are important. So the mission was a long way from over. And then in 1983, as you mentioned, he had a head-on bicycle accident and then was paralyzed from the chest down and has been since that time. And to this day, Moki oversees the triathlon that we run every year as part of our underwater demolition team and our SEAL fraternity. McCraven is best known as the Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. And as I would find out later, it wouldnt be the last time. Admiral, tell me about that premonition. Speaking to MS News, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to a traffic accident on 1 Mar at about 6.45pm. I mean, it showed that we as Americans can do the hard things and do them well. Later, William McRaven shares his story of a horrible parachute accident, which leaves him hospitalized for . Admiral McRaven, on this Independence Day weekend, thank you for your service and thank you for sharing your stories from your recent books, Hero Code, Sea Stories and Make Your Bed. ET. to meet with the CENTCOM commander. He was running special operations in Iraq when Task Force 121, a clandestine unit under JSOC, tracked Saddam Hussein to his spider hole. But it was probably 15 minutes after that. But having said that, I mean, the troops are thoughtful. MCRAVEN: I had arrived in Iraq in October of 2003, and we were hunting Saddam Hussein. hour.s about an mr. axelrod: admiral, great to see you again. It was really about the people that were around me, the people that helped me when I stumbled, the people that picked me up and dusted me off and said, you're going to be OK; keep moving. The drill was to jump at 13,000 feet and once you dropped to 5,500 feet, you pulled your ripcord. So I understood pretty quickly that the guys were a little banged up, but they were OK. And so we went from plan A to plan B. She was seriously injured in a parachute accident. We did. In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, McRaven describes what should have been a "routine parachute jump." Image: Wikipedia.org. And I really didnt have any relief in terms of the mission until after all the helicopters had come back across the border, the Afghan border and were landing at the back at our base. I said, hey, son, how tall are you? I had a medical professional, either a corpsman, a medic or a doctor in the room with him 24/7, along with a security guard. But he was not going to have outside contact with any of his former Iraqi leaders. I didnt think much of it. You know, we had a lot of kind of heated discussions in the meetings I was in, but there was never any rancor. Tell us about that. "I was not some white knight on a horse going with my lance against the windmill," he says. When the lead helicopter lost its lift and crash-landed in an animal pen, one participant in the video call said he thought he might vomit. Theres a lot of things that go on post operation. Operation Neptune Spear stripped al-Qaeda of its iconic leader and offered a kind of recompense for the traumas of 9/11. And every day when I would come in, he would try to engage me. "If I was a loose cannon, he was too rigid. Did we inadvertently kill people we shouldnt have killed? And then as we start to get into the December timeframe, we had another lead. With her father by her side, she laughed off the injury like it was a scratch. But once again, as I mentioned, with Saddam Hussein, you know, until you can do the forensics on the remains, check the fingerprints, check the DNA, do the facial recognition, you know, Im reluctant to have said, hey, weve got jackpot on this one. McRaven says civilians die in fewer than 1% of the raids, a good record in close urban combat, but it still means U.S. commandos are killing noncombatants twice a month. But in the end, you never addressed him directly. Take a look at this video. And you know, after a couple days, they pinned me and plated me and got me going. McRaven grew up as an officer in the aftermath. While encouraging the students to improve the world, . A small group of men would fly nearly 200 miles through the dark, and then they would kill, or fail to kill, a mortal foe. In his speech, Adm. 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