Ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. Tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. You should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. Get headed in a new direction. With humira, remission is possible. Uh, hey. Im bob. Lked at the tax store. I did your taxes. Well, i thought you were a tax expert. female announcer reading . Than all major tax stores combined. Pelley good evening. Im scott pelley. Welcome to 60 minutes presents. Tonight, you will hear from one of the men who shot Osama Bin Laden. Mark owen recently left the navys elite counterterrorism unit, Seal Team Six. Mark owen is not his real name, but its the name that he used to write his book no easy day about the assault on bin ladens compound. We first brought you his story in september. Owen was on the helicopter that crashed into the compound. He was the second man in bin ladens bedroom. And he took the pictures of the body that the world has never seen. Owen received a silver star for valor and a purple heart for a wound suffered in the raid. But despite all that, owen told us, in his only interview, that no easy day is not about him. He says its a tribute to the hundreds of americans who gathered intelligence, planned and trained in the tenyear pursuit of the worlds most wanted man. Seal team six, he told us, just took care of the last 40 minutes. Was this a mission. Was the plan to kill Osama Bin Laden or capture him, before you went in . Mark owen this was absolutely not a killonly mission. It was made very clear to us throughout our. Our training for this that, hey, if given the opportunity, this is. This is not an assassination. You will capture him alive, if. If feasible. Pelley that was the preferred thing . Owen yes. Pelley to take him alive, if you could . Owen yeah, yeah. I mean, were not. Were not there to assassinate somebody. We werent sent in to. To murder him. This was, hey, kill or capture. Pelley this is a firsthand account from someone who was there. The raid, may 1, 2011, had been years in the making. But in the moment, the bestlaid plans failed, leaving a small team of americans to improvise victory from near disaster. Owen this operation was one of the most significant operations in u. S. History. And its something that i believe deserves to be told right and deserves to. To go in a book and stand for itself. Pelley youre in disguise as we do this interview today, and i wonder why. Owen the focus shouldnt be on me; the focus should be on the book. Im not trying to be special or. Or a hero or anything. Im just trying to tell the bigger story. Pelley but youre in disguise also for your own security . Owen yeah, absolutely. Pelley tell me about that. What concerns you . Owen you know, the enemy has a long memory. Pelley and so we spent a long time perfecting a new look for owen. Before each interview, the best artists spent four hours thoroughly changing his appearance. Weve used shadows to enhance the effect and weve altered his voice. Chief petty officer owen was in the navy 14 years. He had read about the seals in Junior High School and set his sights. How many times have you been to war since 9 11 . Owen ive done 13 combat deployments. Pelley afghanistan . Owen afghanistan, iraq, all over. Pelley there are several seal teams, but owen rose to the very top, a unit called the Naval SpecialWarfare Development group Seal Team Six. Seal team six is made up of a number of squadrons, and i wonder, why was your squadron chosen for this particular mission . Was there Something Special about you . Owen nope, nope. Certainly nothing special about me, nothing special about the 24 guys that were chosen, nothing special about the. Our squadron. It really could have been any number of guys. Pelley you just happened to be available for training. Owen yes. Pelley in april, 2011, theyd just returned from afghanistan when they were told to report to North Carolina for an exercise. Give me the lay of the land. Owen walked into a top secret briefing room, saw a model of a compound, and heard this from his buddies. What did they say . Owen said, hey, we found bin laden, or, we think we found bin laden. And they want us to. To come up, you know, rehearse and come up with a plan. If theres gonna be a ground option approved, they want us to rehearse for one. Pelley what did you think . Owen awesome. Pelley the mission was Operation Neptune Spear under the authority of the c. I. A. The agency had tracked a bin laden courier to a curious compound in abbottabad, pakistan. Theyd been watching the compound with satellites. The house seemed too big for the neighborhood. There was no telephone connection. The people there burned their trash. There was a wall 12 feet high, and a walledin balcony. Who lived up there . Owen they briefed us on the individual they were calling the pacer. Pelley the pacer . Owen the pacer. So, hed come out of the house and walk around the yard, what was assessed as just kind of getting exercise. Pelley where did the pacer pace . Owen over here. Pelley in this courtyard back here . Owen right. So, hed just kind of walk out in here. And a lot of the. The vegetation out here was probably purposely planted so surveillance couldnt. Couldnt see down on them. Pelley and hed just go round and round and round. Owen yup. Hed walk around the yard. Sometimes, hed walk with what they assessed to be a female, but, yeah, the. They just walked around the yard. They never stopped to help anybody do any work. If there was other people in the yard working, he never seemed to do any of that. Its above. Almost above it. Pelley above doing the manual labor. He was the boss, whoever he was. Owen right. Pelley the pacer had been in abbottabad about five years. Its a welltodo city of one million people. The compound was about a mile from the Pakistani Military academy. In terms of the inside of the house, how much did you know . Owen zero. Zero. Pelley so once you went through the door, you didnt know what you were going to be facing . Owen right. But, again, it goes back to that years of experience. I mean, weve done this a million times. Pelley raids like this were common many nights in afghanistan and iraq. And looking at the model, the seals didnt think of this as particularly challenging. The tricky part was getting there. The u. S. Wasnt telling pakistan, so the helicopters could be shot down by pakistans modern air defenses. The pilots were from the armys 160th special Operations Aviation regiment. Two modified blackhawks call signs chalk one and chalk two would drop 24 seals and a Belgian Malinois combat dog named cairo. Owen chalk one, which is the one i was on, was going to hover over the compound here. We would drop the two fast ropes, slide down the ropes into the courtyard here, and then go about our business while chalk two would land out here, just over here by the road. Drop the external Containment Team off. They would provide security external. Wed have a. Two men and our. Our combat assault dog would do a quick patrol of the perimeter down to the south and around to make sure that there was no tunnels underneath the wall, if somebody did hear us come in and had time to escape. After dropping those guys off, the second helo was going to come up, hover over the third floor, drop off the remaining guys. They would then hop right down into the balcony, assaulting from the top down, and our guys would assault from the bottom up. Pelley a few days after getting the mission, they had their plan, and so began weeks of rehearsals on a fullsize version of the compound built in North Carolina. How many times did you assault it . How many times did you train on it . Owen a lot. Between when we got the mission and when we left for afghanistan, we probably, you know, get. Probably get 100 times. Pelley so, how unusual was this kind of training . Owen yeah, very unusual. Ive never. Ive never had all the mockups. Ive never rehearsed for something for three weeks. Pelley one rehearsal had an audience the nations highest ranking officer, admiral mike mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs; the head of special operations, admiral eric olson; and observers from the white house. Owen one of the things that i liked after the fact was, i remember admiral mullen coming by and talking to each one of us, and then admiral olsen as well. And i thought that was cool that, you know, they walked by, shook each of our hands and said, hey, are you guys ready . Can you guys pull this off . And im pretty sure, to a man, we all said, yes, absolutely. Pelley the team got several days off at home around easter. Then, in late april, about a month after they got the mission, they loaded on a plane bound for a u. S. Base in afghanistan. The president wasnt convinced yet. No one confirmed that bin laden was the pacer, so Seal Team Six was on standby. One of the passengers on their plane was a c. I. A. Analyst who had spent five years on bin ladens trail. Owen i cant give her enough credit. I mean, she. In my opinion, she kind of teed up this whole thing, and is just, you know, wicked smart, kind of feisty. And she was. You know, wed always talk back and forth, hey, what. You know, what do you think the odds of this are . What do you think the odds of that are, you know . And, hey, you know, what you do think . Think hes there . Shes like, 100 . 100 hes there. Pelley and you thought what . Owen well, well see. Pelley three days later, on april 30, the president was telling jokes at the annual white house correspondents dinner. C. I. A. Director leon panettas belly laugh was heard all across the room. Reporters in ball gowns and tuxedos had no idea that, just a few hours before, president obama had ordered panetta to launch the raid. Mr. Obama kept to his schedule, thinking that, on this night, it was better to have reporters drinking and laughing than asking questions. When did you first hear that the president had approved your mission . Owen the Commanding Officer of our. Our command walked in and said, hey, just got off the phone. The missions approved. Pelley what did you think . Owen this is big. This is cool. Im glad im a part of it. Pelley the raid was supposed to be april 30, but the weather was bad. The next night, vice admiral William Mcraven saw the men off. He was a seal, and he had planned the mission as head of the joint special operations command. Just before midnight, the blackhawks started the sprint from the u. S. Base in jalalabad, afghanistan, to abbottabad, about 150 miles away. The helicopters were blacked out against a clear, moonless night. The army pilots, guided by night vision goggles, flew high speed, treetop level, under pakistani radar. Owen it was roughly an hour and a half. I remember. You know, we took off, shut the doors, and. And the radio call i heard was. You know, hey, were. Were over the border. Were crossing the border into pakistan. And i remember thinking, wow, this is. Okay, this is happening. And. And i swear, i glance around the helicopter and. And half the guys are sitting there asleep on the ride in. It was an hour and a half ride, so guys got to catch. Catch a few zs on the way in. Pelley wait a minute. Your team is flying in to Osama Bin Ladens compound, and theyre asleep . Owen yeah, no, its your. Its your time to just kind of shut your eyes, relax, you know . Mentally walk through whatever you need to walk through. Pelley it was about 1 00 in the morning, 66 degrees, 65 humidity, with calm winds. Owen at one minute, we open the door, and i just kind of swung my legs out and im sitting there looking down. Im thinking, wow, you know, this is a beautiful. This is a beautiful spot houses with pools in the backyard, well lit. Manicured yards. Like, wow, this is definitely not, you know, the mud huts of afghanistan. Pelley somehow, there was a blackout in the neighborhood. No one will say whether that was luck or design, but it meant ideal darkness for the seals with their night vision goggles. You could see the compound coming . Owen uhhuh. Pelley you had the door to the blackhawk open . Owen uhhuh. Pelley and your legs were swung outside . Owen right. Just make a little more room, be faster to. You know, quicker for everybody to get out and fastrope out of the helicopter. So everybodys getting ready to fastrope. And then, all of a sudden, we banked hard 90 degrees, and then we. Once we went hard 90, it was very apparent that some. Something was wrong. Pelley owen doesnt know what went wrong, but pilots say that a chopper can lose lift when it drops into the turbulence of its own downdraft. And the turbulence would have been much worse because the downdraft was being magnified and reflected by the compounds walls. Owen these pilots are the best in the world. You dont. You dont get better than these guys. And. And typically, they just, boom, they move right in and they stick it. It. It was like parking a car for these guys. And it was. It was a rough. It was a rough ride. We were pretty low, tail rotor and everything happened to miss this wall here, and then we were just kind of sliding and falling out of the sky this way. I was now in the front of the helicopter although i was sitting on the left side, i was now the front. My buddy right behind me, he pretty much should have fallen out. If it werent for him hanging on to me, there is a good chance i would have been thrown from the helicopter. Pelley as the helicopter is going down, what were you thinking . Owen this is going to suck, you know. Hey, wow. Pelley the carefully rehearsed plan was out the window before the first boot hit the ground. With one helicopter and half of the seals having crashed, the second helicopter abandoned the roof assault as too risky and the seals began to improvise. One thing was sure now the people in the house knew they were coming. Cbs money watch update sponsored by good evening. 85 billion worth of federal spending cuts kick in friday bar lastingminute deal in congress. New government numbers put houston on top as the nations fastestgrowing city economically. And gas averages 3. 78 a gallon, up 45 cents in a month. Im jeff glor, cbs news. So do you guys think being fast is better than being slow . 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Start today with a free oneonone review of your retirement plan. Pelley the raid on bin ladens house was supposed to be straightforward. Two helicopters, call signs chalk one and chalk two, carried 24 members of Seal Team Six, each man hauling 60 pounds of gear. One Group Planned to slide down ropes onto the roof of the house. Mark owens Group Planned to rope down into the courtyard. But owens Helicopter Crashed, and now everything was changing for the most important Counter Terrorism assault in u. S. History. Tell me about the crash. Owen the pilot mentioned. You know, i remember him mentioning in the rehearsals, like, you know, if i have to ditch this thing, im going to try and put it down in this courtyard. So that. Thats exactly what he did, you know . You can tell what he did, you could hear the helicopter winding up. Pelley he was putting all the power on it he could, but it wasnt helping. Owen no, nothing. Came in and impacted boom. Had the angle been more, the rotors wouldve hit the ground, snapped off, and caused us to roll. Had the tail rotor hit, obviously, it wouldve broke and caused us to break and roll. The loadbearing section of the tail landed precisely on the wall. Pelley the strongest part of the tail just happened to land on the wall . Owen yep. And the angle happened to be perfect. It all came down to inches really, inches either way. We stopped. The main rotor blades are still turning. I dont think you could recreate that if you tried. Pelley lucky. Owen lucky, but again, huge props to these pilots. I mean, everybody wants to meet the guy who shot bin laden. I want to meet the pilot. I mean, i wouldnt be here if it werent for him. Pelley if the pilot had not brought your helicopter down intact, would the mission have failed . Owen no, i dont think so, because chalk two was on the ground. And as soon as they saw us crash land, that chalk two helicopter pilot saw that happen, decided not to push the position to go to the roof. And thats one thing that admiral mcraven said in one of our very last rehearsals, briefs, dry runs, right there in afghanistan before we launched. He stood up and he said, hey, listen, dont try any fancy stuff. Just get the guys on the ground and theyll figure it out. Pelley you mention in the book that one of the army pilots that was flying your team looked to you to be about 50 years old . Owen he was definitely a little older. Pelley but i guess, in this line of work, its experience that matters. Owen yeah. Yeah. Hes probably been flying longer than ive been alive. So theres nothing wrong with that. Pelley they had planned to be on the ground 30 minutes, but now, they were running late. Owens team landed in this courtyard walled off from the house. So, your team does what . Owen i ran out here. I turn around and look, and i see the guys on the left side of the helicopter. Theyre sitting right at. Staring at the front door. So, they simply hop out and go right to the front door like nothing happened. Pelley go right to this door here . Owen yep. Pelley the other helicopter landed outside the perimeter wall, dropped all of its seals, and took off. Now, whats your objective . Whats your team supposed to do right now . Owen we were secur