SEAL Target Geronimo - Chuck Pfarrer

Summary from B&N: On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: “Geronimo, Echo, KIA.” These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Laden’s three-decade-long career of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Bin Laden’s relentless hunters and how they took down the terrorist mastermind, told by Chuck Pfarrer, a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six and author of the bestselling Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details of the historic raid and the men who planned and conducted it in an exclusive boots-on-the-ground account of what happened during each minute of the mission— both inside the building and outside.

I don’t remember how I heard about this book, but I wanted to read it because I got to observe a little piece of history regarding this operation. The USS Carl Vinson happened to be pulling into port at Pearl Harbor the day I was there. That is the carrier that Bin Laden’s body was transported to and then buried at sea from. But back to the book…

I found it very interesting. Although I also found that the majority of this book wasn’t specific to this mission. (Probably a good thing considering the need for security – it wasn’t even supposed to be known that it was a SEAL job). In reading it, you learn a lot about the history of the Navy SEALS and some about the history of Osama Bin Laden’s rise to power. And then it concludes with this historical mission.

The book was difficult to read, at times, simply due to all the codes and such. However, even a novice like me was able to make heads and tails of it. Man, the SEALS train for a lot…and run very regimented operations. And I’m grateful for them…whoever and wherever they are.

My only qualm with the book is one piece of misinformation…that makes me wonder if all the other facts in the book were thoroughly fact-checked. And the misinformation has to do with SEAL history on the location of a base. Pfarrer states that Offutt Air Base is in Florida. It is not. It’s in Nebraska. I know this; I was born there.

But one error doesn’t cause the whole book to be thrown out. If you are interested in the military or the war or the SEALs or recent events, I definitely think it’s worth a read.