New York: Robert O'Neill, the former Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama Bin Laden, said that ahead of 2011 Abbottabad raid, he gave departing gifts to his children and believed that he won't be able to meet his family again.
Recalling about the preparations he made before he left for the trip,Neill said that he arranged a last meal with his children and offered them "never coming back" gifts and also had a "last conversation" with his father, fearing of not returning.
"As depressing as that sounds ... I wasn't afraid, I was just focused," O'Neill said, adding "We were preparing to not come home."
Believing that the mission was "one way," and none of his team would make it out alive, Neill said, "My father and I talked. We would talk before a lot of missions, he would joke like, 'I wish I could go with you!' I would say, I know, Dad, I wish you could, too. I said I am with some great guys. That was the last conversation."
O'Neill participated in more than 400 missions during his time with the SEALs. Despite his concerns, the raid on bin Laden's Pakistan compound "wasn't even one of the most difficult targets we've been on," he said.
Neill described his group as a group of combat veteran navy SEALs.We'd all done it hundreds and hundreds of times. t was the best team I've ever been a part of," he said.
We were prepared for all possible contingencies that could arise during the Osama mission . that "it had been an honor to serve with the best people in the world."
"I remember thinking how cool they were, how professional, smooth,fast, nobody panicked," he recalled.
"Our tactics took over. We didn't know what the inside looked like,but that didn't matter. I was able to watch as we slowly went up the stairs. And when we got to the top, I was in position where I turned a corner and I did what any SEAL, any Ranger, any special operator would have done. I saw bin Laden, and he was a threat, he was not surrendering, and so I took -- I treated him as if he were a suicide bomber, which I assumed he was, and I shot him in the face three times."
