MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) — The former US Navy SEAL who killed Osama Bin Laden has revealed his identity in a two-part television interview which will be broadcast on Fox News next week, the Washington Post reports.
“People are asking if we are worried that ISIS will come and get us because Rob is going public. I say I'll paint a big target on my front door and say come and get us,” declared the soldier’s father Tom O’Neill in an interview published yesterday in the Daily Mail.
Rob O’Neill says he shot Osama Bin Laden three times at close range when SEAL Team Six executed a raid on the notorious terrorist’s compound in Abbottobad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011. However, another Team Six operator interviewed by CNN gave an alternative account, in which the “point man” of the operation fired the shot that killed Bin Laden.
In an interview with Esquire last year, O’Neill chose to only be named as “the Shooter”, explaining that to name himself “would be counter to the team's code, and it would also put a huge ‘kill me’ target on his back.” However, O’Neill appears to have changed his mind. In the same report, Esquire detailed the financial and health problems faced by the former serviceman, who left the force four years shy of the 20-year period that he would have needed to have served in order to receive a Navy pension.
After the publication of the Esquire report, Navy SEAL commander Sean Pybus told armytimes.com that “this former SEAL made a deliberate and informed decision to leave the Navy several years short of retirement status.” O’Neill now makes a living as a motivational speaker. In the Daily Mail interview his father said, “I support him in everything he is doing,” and added, “What are you supposed to do when you come out of the military after such service — become a greeter at Walmart?”
O’Neill is not the first SEAL to go public with his account. Two years ago former serviceman Matt Bissonette, also a member of the team which killed the leader of Al-Qaeda, published a book giving his account of the mission, which differs from O’Neill’s. He was later interviewed by CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
In a letter sent last week, the senior leadership of the Naval Special Warfare Command responded by criticizing the revelations of the former servicemen. A copy of the letter has been published on SOFREP.com, a veterans’ website, and states that: “A critical tenant of our Ethos is “I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions.”” The letter also warned that those who reveal classified information face legal action for doing so.
