In these pages, 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 most selective units, and reveals firsthand details of the most  celebrated terrorist takedown in history.