NY Times fascinating review of the new SEAL book, “No Easy Day”

UPDATE: Another NYT column aboutthe ebook No Easy Op, which discusses this book and it's author.

The reviewer is long-time NYT critic and reviewer, Janet Maslin (Who is married to Benjamin Cheever, sone of the very acclaimed fction writer and Ossining resident, the late John Cheever). I didn't know this, but Maslin lives in Pleasantville, and "serves as president of the board of the Jacob Burns Film Center."

Anyway, a very interesting review of what is evidently a more then interesting book. the author, was on the raid that killed bin Laden.

A SEAL’s Own Story, Bin Laden and All

The Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, learned from
ABC News that they had “gazelle legs, no waist, and a huge upper body
configuration,” not to mention calloused hands and gigantic egos. They
learned from other American news sources that they had taken part in a
45-minute firefight and that an armed bin Laden, once cornered, had
tried to defend himself in his final moments, staring straight at the
fighters who would shoot him. Their raid was being turned into a bad
action movie.

These distortions seemed funny at first. But “Mark Owen” (the pseudonym
of one gutsy, transgressive member of the SEALs, who served 13
consecutive combat deployments) began to want to set the record
straight. He hoped to deliver firsthand a visceral and often surprising
version of the bin Laden raid and other SEAL stories. The emphasis of
his “No Easy Day,” written with Kevin Maurer, is not on spilling
secrets. It is on explaining a SEAL’s rigorous mind-set and showing how
that toughness is created.

Maslin goes on to give the book an excellent review; I may have to get the kindle edition.


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