The Virginia Beach Navy SEAL who fired the fatal shots to bin Laden’s head apparently didn't expect the terrorist to be so tall.
“He was very unused to this idea of shooting up, so he wasn't prepared for somebody quite as tall,” said reporter Phil Bronstein, who said the shooter shared intimate details of the raid with him. “[Osama] bin Laden was much taller that he expected, so he talks about having to aim his gun up."
In Bronstein’s Esquire Magazine article “The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden… Is Screwed”, he the shooter gave him a detailed account of what lead to the three gunshots that changed history.
According to Bronstein, the shooter says he was behind the point man, which shot and missed from the second level. Then, both men climbed the stairs to bin Laden’s bedroom on the third floor.
He says the point man went toward two of bin Laden’s screaming wives. The shooter, according to Bronstein, said "he thought [the point man] was going to absorb the blast of suicide vests; he was going to kill himself so I could get the shot. It was the most heroic thing I’ve ever seen."
At that point, the shooter entered bin Laden’s room.
Bronstein writes “the SEALs had night scopes, but it was coal-black for bin Laden and the other residents. [bin Laden] can hear but he can't see."
The shooter said of bin Laden: "He looked confused" and "had his hands on a woman's shoulders, pushing her ahead. Not exactly toward me, but by me ...maybe as a shield, I don't know. He’s got a gun on a shelf right there, the short AK he's famous for.”
“He shot him in the forehead and another time in the forehead as he was going down and then a third time in the forehead when he was at the foot of his bed obviously probably already dead,” Bronstein said.
Bronstein writes that "others have claimed that they shot bin Laden when he was already dead, and a number of team members apparently did just that."
