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I’ve just finished reading “No Easy Day.”   The cover and flyleaf and the pre-pub hyperbole will sell a lot of books to those who are armchair aficionados of military special operations.  Those who believe the fictional images portrayed by Arnold and Sylvester will be both enlightened and disappointed by the book.

My impression of the book’s theme is that it is first and foremost about mental discipline and focus.   It was more an unintended self-help book about striving to achieve excellence in personal performance while at the same time recognizing that achieving personal excellence depends heavily on others having the same objective and translating it into team performance. 

To his credit the author recognized with sincere humility that his SEAL team’s accomplishments depended not only on their own discipline and focus but also on the same qualities in others such as the CIA’s analyst “Jen” and the pilots and crews of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Night Stalkers.”

It was reassuring for me to read Chapter 19 titled “Touch the Magic.”   It quite accurately characterizes the willingness of the non-operators from the White House through the nation’s newsrooms to distort the information the public receives.  That revelation was reassuring to me, because it also revealed just how little those distortions affect the operators on the ground .  The operators portrayed in the book clearly have their own political ideas, but those ideas are subordinated to the success of the operation.   Mental discipline and focus.

There was one humorous anecdote in Chapter 19 that nicely sums up how little the operators were awestruck by the President and Vice President.  Obama and Biden met with the SEAL team members at Ft. Campbell, KY, after Neptune Spear to congratulate the team members.  Here is how the book’s author characterized the President’s and Vice-President’s participation:

I don’t recall much about [President Obama’s] speech.  It was straight from the speechwriter’s playbook:  “You guys are America’s best.”  “You are what America stands for.”  “Thank you from the American people.”  “Job well done.”

After the speech, we posed for a few pictures.  Biden kept cracking lame jokes that no one got.  He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner. “

From reading only those comments, one might mistakenly believe that the author was some arrogant SOB who had put himself on a pedestal.   But I believe the author’s true mindset may have best been revealed with these lines in the Eplilogue:

For the fallen SEALs who didn’t make it home, their sacrifice is not in vain.   Some were lost fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Others died training to fight.  We hold all of them close to our hearts and know they died for something so much bigger than themselves.  Despite knowing the risks, men like these continue to willingly sacrifice everything.

I challenge ever person who reads this to sacrifice a little something as well.  I’ve been asked a question:  “I’m not a SEAL and probably couldn’t do it if I tried, but what can I do to help?”

Two answers come to mind.

Don’t just live, but live for a purpose bigger than yourself.  Be an asset to your family, community and country.

The second is that you can donate time and money to a veteran’s organization or one that supports wounded warriors.  These men and women have done their part and need our help.

Mental discipline and focus.