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McRaven didn’t actually kill bin Laden. The shot was fired by one of twenty-three SEALs who flew into Pakistan on the night of May 1st, stormed bin Laden’s compound, and took his body away. Their identities remain secret. And McRaven might have preferred the same. His name, however, became part of the lore of the raid after Panetta, who was the director of the C.I.A., told PBS’s Jim Lehrer that McRaven was the “real commander” of the Abbottabad mission. McRaven had long been revered inside the special-operations community, but he was hardly known outside of military circles. In fact, immediately after finishing with Panetta, Lehrer felt obliged to inform viewers that McRaven was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC (McRaven has since received his fourth star and been promoted to commander of Special Operations Command, of which JSOC is one component.)
- Nicholas Schmidle on Admiral Bill McRaven. Last August, Schmidle wrote in detail about McRaven’s role overseeing the bin Laden mission.
