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  • The Operator

  • Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior
  • By: Robert O'Neill
  • Narrated by: Robert O'Neill
  • Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (838 ratings)

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The Operator cover art

The Operator

By: Robert O'Neill
Narrated by: Robert O'Neill
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Publisher's Summary

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

In this book O'Neill describes his idyllic childhood in Butte, Montana; his impulsive decision to join the SEALs; the arduous evaluation and training process; and the even tougher gauntlet he had to run to join the SEALs' most elite unit. After officially becoming a SEAL, O'Neill would spend more than a decade in the most intense counterterror effort in US history. For extended periods, not a night passed without him and his small team recording multiple enemy kills - and though he was lucky enough to survive, several of the SEALs he'd trained with and fought beside never made it home.

The Operator describes the nonstop action of O'Neill's deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, evokes the black humor of years-long combat, brings to vivid life the lethal efficiency of the military's Tier One units, and reveals firsthand details of the most celebrated terrorist takedown in history.

©2017 Robert O'Neill (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic Reviews

"Gripping...this story is impossible to put down.... What O'Neill has written is unique, surprising, a kind of counternarrative." (Doug Stanton, New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers)
"O'Neill wrote himself into American history with the three shots he fired into Osama bin Laden...intensely moving and awe-inspiring." (Marcus Luttrell, New York Times best-selling coauthor of Lone Survivor and Service)

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What listeners say about The Operator

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Absolutely Amazing

I loved this book from start to finish. I've never been a big book reader but since I drive a lot, I decided to give audio books a go and this one has hooked me.

I laughed and I cried in this book. O'Neils reading of the book really tops it off. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much without his voice on his words. It's just like a conversation. A 10 hour long, one sided conversation but to be honest, that's not long enough.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Mel
  • 08-02-2021

This guy toots his own horn the whole way through

Every reference to a woman was how attractive or unattractive she was. This guy's ego is ridiculous.

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2 people found this helpful

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awesome

amazing listen ,made all the better by rob reading it . willisten again and again.

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1 person found this helpful

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Fantastic book! Cannot recommend enough

This was an amazing book to listen. Rob’s honest yet very ‘tongue and cheek’ representation of his special forces career was inspirational to say the very least.

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What a book!!!

Amazing! Truly terrific. recommend to any current, former or future military member around the globe.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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couldn't stop listening awesome book 👍👍👍

love that it was read by the author makes it seem that much more real

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Great read ... however

Great read I couldn't stop once I started on this title. Finished it pretty quickly in record time. Full of stories, a narrative and a chronology of his time in the Seals from Buds through to retiring from the Navy, not to mention taking down Osama Bin Laden. One thing though ... I thought the expletive language didn't really suit his voice and maybe emphasising expletives (at times) in the narration was not necessary. Otherwise great story.

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Greatest book I have ever listened to

Robert is a true hero and its an honour to be able to hear his stories. I loved it from start to finish.

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Honest Telling. Actual author reading

I loved that it was read by the author, just added to the authenticity. I would’ve loved for the book to be longer

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Awesome account

epic, love it, great detail. truly amazing what the human body can withstand and the trained mind.

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