The identities of other key players in the war against terrorism remain anonymous. No one has identified the troops who slapped cuffs on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein or named the pilots who dropped the bombs that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Times have certainly changed. Another era’s military history-makers were frequently publicly identified — Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, wasn’t a mystery. But this is a different kind of war — a kind of perpetual, amorphous conflict — one much less likely to see a formal declaration of peace. Also it’s likely the shooter’s superiors would forbid him and his colleagues to reveal his identity.
“This is playing in the Super Bowl and getting the Oscar all in one breath. He wants credit,” Marcinko supposes of the shooter who felled bin Laden. “But only among his peers.” Many SEALs consider themselves “humble warriors,” Greitens says.
But among his colleagues, the shooter’s identity will be well-known. And right now, he’s probably in for some locker-room-style ribbing.
“They’re gonna hard-ass him,” Marcinko says. “It’ll be, ‘If I’d have been there, it’d have been done in 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes.’ ” Smith can envision the shooter’s pals razzing him about the precise location of the shot. But, in the culture of the SEALs, it’s not as if he won’t push back. He’ll come back at them, Marcinko says, with something like: “Talk is cheap. I did it. I left my mark in the sand.”
There are sure to be awards and honorifics, all done in private. But the shooter is likely looking for some moments of peace, a way to completely remove himself from the pressure cooker. “These guys can one day be killing on the other side of the world and then mowing the grass 24 hours later,” Smith says.
But given the chance, he’ll almost certainly want to get right back into the action, to feel the rev of adrenaline again. “He keeps going,” Marcinko predicts. “He wants to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.” He’ll be thinking: “Let me prove I really did know what I’m doing.”
When the next helicopter is fueled and ready to whirl away, Greitens says, the Unknown Shooter will “be the first one running for the helo.”
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