The former Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the fatal shot that killed Osama bin Laden has revealed the one regret he still carries.
It has been 15 years since Robert O'Neill burst into a remote compound in Pakistan and came face-to-face with the al-Qaeda leader on 1 May, 2011.
He returned home as a hero after unleashing three bullets that left bin Laden 'crumpled at the foot of his bed' during the pivotal mission which was known as Operation Neptune Spear.
US forces had been hunting the terrorist leader down for almost a decade in wake of the devastating attacks on the Twin Towers in September 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people and left thousands injured.
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After evading capture for years, bin Laden was eventually found holed up in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan - and under the orders of former president Barack Obama, SEAL Team Six stormed inside and shot him.
More than a decade on from the day that he pulled the trigger, O'Neill has told how his special forces unit weren't motivated by 'the fame or the reward'.
"We were going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at school on a Tuesday morning, then an hour later, jumped out of the World Trade Center, pressing down her skirt as her last act of human decency," he told the New York Post. "She was never supposed to do that."
The former military man, 50, explained that the team were first informed of the high stakes operation three weeks before it unfolded, but said they had no idea about how important it was at the time.
"They said on a Friday, go home and be with your kids, and come back Sunday for a read-in," O'Neill recalled. "I asked, “Who’s going to be at the read-in?' It was the vice president, the secretary of defence, the secretary of the Navy.
"We’re like, “What in the world?'"
After the penny dropped, the elite unit tasked with taking out bin Laden 'came up with the perfect plan' before 'rehearsing it day and night', while also 'practicing different scenarios' in anticipation of what reception they might receive.
Emphasising what was at stake, O'Neill - who previously revealed how much he earned from participating in Operation Neptune Spear - said: "This would be a one-way mission. You’re not afraid you’re gonna die, but you’re prepared for death. We were going after bin Laden for the first Americans who were forced to fight al Qaeda, to the death, toe to toe, on a Tuesday morning: the passengers on Flight 93.
"Any one of us could pull ourselves out and live for another 50 years.
"But when you’re on your deathbed, if you could give every single day back for one shot at this motherf**ker...The hardest part is telling your kids goodbye, because death is coming."
The author explained that he and his comrades 'knew there would be a gunfight' and had braced for a bloody battle, as 'if anybody was going to martyr his entire family, it’s bin Laden'.
O'Neill said that the entire operation 'happened in the span of nine minutes'. After bursting into bin Laden's lair and searching every room to find him, he ended up 'three feet away' from the terrorist leader.
"I recognised him immediately," the former SEAL said. "I was impressed with how skinny he was. His beard was sort of grey. His hands were on his wife Amal’s shoulders. I took it as a threat; he could blow himself up.
"At SEAL Team Six, we shoot you twice in the head right away. I shot him twice and shot him again with my H&K 416. He crumpled on the foot of his bed.
"I just shot Bin Laden - like what the f**k? Everything I had ever known, everything I planned, just changed drastically.
"I have to clean his face, hold his head together and take a picture. One of my guys asks, 'Hey, are you good bro?' I said, 'Yes, what do we do now?' He said go find the computers.'You just killed Osama bin Laden, your life is about to f**king change, now get back to work', he told me."
Although Operation Neptune Spear was a roaring success for the US, O'Neill admitted that there is one thing that he wishes was done differently.
Bin Laden was buried at sea, with American officials saying this procedure was chosen to ensure his grave did not become a shrine and as there was no time to arrange a burial on land.
But if O'Neill had his way, he told the Post that he would have much preferred to see the Saudi Arabian terror figure strung up in New York City - so that Americans could deliver their own justice.
The dad previously appeared in the Netflix documentary American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden to recount the events of 1 May, 2011.
Despite O'Neill's insistence that he fired the shot that killed bin Laden, another former Navy Seal also claimed that he was responsible for the al-Qaeda leader's death.
Both Bisonette and O’Neill have been heavily criticised by the military community in the US for breaching a widely accepted ‘code of silence’.
Topics: US News, Osama bin Laden, Terrorism, Army
Olivia Burke