Osama bin Laden met his death at the end of a Virginia Beach based Navy SEAL's gun. The man's identity is a mystery to many, but apparently not to reporter Phil Bronstein who says the shooter shared special details with him face to face in the Esquire Magazine article “The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden… Is Screwed”.
Bronstein never reveals the shooter's identity, but he does divulge details of the shooter's personal struggles since leaving the Navy after the bin Laden raid.
“I think he has nightmares about how he's going to support his family and how he's going to feed his family,” Bronstein told CNN.
Bronstein writes that the shooter left three years before retirement because "he was burned out" and "wanted to see my children graduate and get married."
Esquire Magazine: Virginia Beach bin Laden shooter reveals intimate details of raid
“Deployment after deployment, killing people on a regular basis and they finally get to a point where they don't want to do that anymore, and if they're short of their 20 years, they get zero pension,” Bronstein told CNN.
“No pension. No healthcare. And no protection for himself or his family” the article says.
Bronstein writes that "when the family asked about any kind of government protection should the shooter's name come out, they were advised they could go into a witness protection-like program.”
The shooter said "the SEAL command told him they could get him a job driving a beer truck in Milwaukee".
"That was the best idea on the table for security" the shooter said according to Bronstein.
“He thought 99 percent of what al-Qaeda said was talk but the one percent was pretty vicious and nasty and so you want to protect your family,” Bronstein told CNN.
“There’s no protection, no set up at all, no system at all for any protection like that at all, that's just not part of it,” said former Navy SEAL Don Mann. “Really the deal is you don't talk about it and people don't know, that's the way it's set up.”
Mann can't confirm if the shooter did indeed do this interview with Bronstein, but he says the story line -- especially when it comes to finding employment -- is not far-fetched.
“It also didn't surprise me that he can't get a job, because he can't put on his application, you know I’m the one who killed bin Laden,” Mann said.
While the shooter may be struggling to figure out the next steps of his life, it seems he doesn't regret pulling the trigger.
The shooter’s quoted as saying "I’m not religious but I always felt I was put on earth to do something specific. After that mission, I knew what it was".
