In a rare and deeply personal conversation, President Barack Obama and Admiral Bill McRaven reflect on the night that changed history — the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. McRaven recalls Obama’s quiet strength, his decision-making under pressure, and a powerful moment at Fort Campbell when the President insisted on shaking every soldier’s hand. Obama, in turn, reflects on the weight of leadership, the cost of war, and the unbreakable promise to serve those who serve the nation.
00:00One of the reasons that we asked the president to go to Fort Campbell, there was a recognition that, yes, it was great for the SEALs and the Night Stalkers to be the final piece of the puzzle, but make no mistake about it, this was the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors, airmen, marines, intelligence professionals, foreign service officers that had all contributed to this fight, and that frankly were all part of the endgame, even if they weren't right there on target.
00:28And the best way to have done that, certainly from the Department of Defense side, was to meet with one of the larger elements, which was the 101st Airborne Division.
00:36But I remember when you came down, sir, of course, the team was assembled there, and before you arrived, they understood it.
00:44And these were seasoned operators.
00:46These were not young kids.
00:47As you know, when you finally met them, I think you were a little surprised by how seemingly long in the tooth some of these guys were.
00:52I mean, these were seasoned professionals that understood the magnitude of your decision.
01:02They had been involved in hundreds of missions before, and all of them understood that at the end of the day, somebody has to make the decision to go.
01:10You know, sometimes it's at the 06 level, the, you know, the colonel or the Navy captain.
01:15Sometimes it's the flag officer level.
01:16And then sometimes it's the president of the United States.
01:19And they know how hard those decisions are.
01:21And they, again, they are incredibly bright young men who also understood the kind of political, the larger political and geopolitical ramifications of this.
01:30So for you to show up to thank them, I think they wanted to thank you for making the decision that they knew the risk.
01:37They knew that we didn't know whether bin Laden was there.
01:40And that was an incredibly bold decision on your part.
01:44But the part that I remember most about that visit was after we got through talking to the SEALs and the Night Stalkers, we went over to the 101st.
01:53And the plan, at least as I recall, was you were going to get up, we were in a giant hangar, of course, there were hundreds of soldiers out front.
02:00You were going to, you know, say some remarks and then kind of shake a few hands, almost a ceremonial shake a few hands.
02:07Right.
02:08Well, you came off the platform, you went down.
02:15Sorry.
02:16No, that's how I felt.
02:18You went down to start shaking hands and, of course, the soldiers start lining up.
02:24Right.
02:25And, you know, you start shaking hands and, you know, I went to the chief of staff.
02:29I said, look, I know the president's got some things going on here and if he stands there, everybody's going to line up to shake the president's hand.
02:37And you kept shaking hands.
02:39And finally, I kind of saddled up beside you and I said, Mr. President, you know, you don't need to shake everybody's hand.
02:45And you turned to me and you said, hey, Bill, this is important to me and hopefully it's important to them.
02:53And you shook 800 hands that day.
02:56People were coming from everywhere.
02:59When they found out you were shaking hands in the hangar, what you didn't see, which is what I saw, was there was a line outside that hangar.
03:05And the kids were lining up, the soldiers were lining up because they knew the president was going to stay there until every single hand.
03:12And, you know, I will tell you, Bill, because I get emotional about this too, every one of those kids had signed up and said to the country and to me,
03:36the people who were making decisions about how they're going to be deployed, they had said, we are here, we are ready,
03:46and we are willing to sacrifice everything to defend this country.
03:51And some of them saw action and some of them didn't.
03:55Some of them had friends who came back and some of them had friends who didn't come back.
04:00Some came back and were grievously wounded.
04:05All of them came back with scars that maybe weren't always visible.
04:13And, you know, my attitude that day was an attitude that I did my utmost to remind myself every single day.
04:24If they were willing to make those sacrifices, the least they should expect is that their leaders, military or civilian,
04:35are going to operate with integrity, aren't going to allow politics to intrude in decision-making,
04:42that they're going to be appreciated, that their sacrifices won't be in vain.
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