Saturday, September 8, 2012

My review of No Easy Day (the story of the Bin Laden raid)

No Easy Day is a valuable historic account of one of the most legendary operations in American history. There are many discussions on whether or not a SEAL should have written this book, and I'll leave that subject to the experts. For me, I am giving my review based purely on what I read.

The opening chapter puts the reader on the edge of his or her seat with Mr. Owen's Blackhawk helicopter going down. Then the story calms with a walk through the author's rise in the SEALs. I found it very interesting to read his accounts of various missions as he seemed very honest in his descriptions. He didn't try to make himself bigger than he was and instead gave credit to the men around him.

Back when his team completed their Bin Laden mission, I remember listening to the media experts and trying to imagine what had actually happened within that compound. I remember being so disappointed that the experts said we would never truly know. Now we do. Reading through that historic night had me completely engrossed and I found myself thinking about the book long after reading it (which is always a good sign for a book.)

Sine this is a review, I will be a little nit-picky. The biggest disappointment i had was that the author chose to give his opinion on our president and how he felt the president would take a lot of credit for what happened that night. I feel that is a bit unfair. Politicians are going to take that credit regardless of which party is in charge in the same way that the other party would dish out the blame if the mission went bad. In fact, i remember repulicans shouting how it was their policies that led to the successful operation. I just felt Mr. Owen made it personal against Obama with a few comments. It wasn't even as much that the author said he didn't care for Obama as it was that he talked about a conversation where he wondered if they even wanted to do the mission because Obama would benefit. Of course, he admits that wasn't really going to sway whether he felt the mission was necessary, but just mentioning it kinda gave me a wierd feeling. Id say that regardless of whether I am republican or democrat. It's like, you don't want your favorite football star winning the Super Bowl and then saying in the interview afterward, "I don't like our team's owner." it just allienates those who do like the team's owner and the fact that that owner's team just won the championship. I know it's not fair to expect any person to not have political opinions, but I just think he could have avoided that polarizing issue for this book. But it is his story and he has the right to tell it how he chooses.

Any other complaints I might have are so minor that they aren't worth mentioning.

Though I considered 4 stars because of the few few minor complaints I had, I believe the experience of reading a book should be the qualifying factor for the amount of stars it receives and my experience with No Easy Day was a great one.

Thank you Mr. Owen for everything you have done. You are truly a hero.