Fifteen years after the raid in Abbottabad, Robert O\u2019Neill can still replay every step of that third-floor sprint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crash of the Black Hawk, the frantic room-clearing, the split-second decision to push forward instead of waiting for backup \u2014 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
all of it led to a narrow bedroom doorway and the world\u2019s most wanted man standing behind a human shield. O\u2019Neill fired the shots and watched the decade-long manhunt end in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Downstairs and thousands of miles away in Washington, lives and careers hung on a single radio call. The code name was \u201cGeronimo.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The transmission was clinical, almost cold: \u201cFor God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo\u2026 Geronimo EKIA.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Situation Room, Barack Obama answered with three quiet words: \u201cWe got him.\u201d O\u2019Neill later broke the SEALs\u2019 code of silence, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
accepting criticism to claim his role. For him, the secret had become heavier than the mission itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fifteen years after the raid in Abbottabad, Robert O\u2019Neill can still replay every step of that third-floor sprint. The crash of the Black Hawk, the frantic room-clearing, the split-second decision to push forward instead of waiting for backup \u2014 all of it led to a narrow bedroom doorway and the world\u2019s most wanted man standing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16430,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16428\/revisions\/16430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}