O’Neill first describes why he entered the military in the first place.  He jokes about it now but back in 1995, he enlisted in order to get away from a girl he just had broken up with.  The only way for people to get out of Butte, Montana was to join the military, so that is exactly what he did.  Wanting to join the Marines, Rob went to the recruiter.  The Marine recruiter was not in the office.  Rob remembered a line that his Marine friends said: “The Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy.  The men’s Department” (O’Neill 11).  He figured the Navy recruiter would know where he was.  The Navy recruiter persuaded Rob into going into the Navy and to become a Navy SEAL.  Even though Rob did not know how to swim, he signed the dotted line to ship out in six months.  At boot camp, Rob was able to pass the screening test to be able to go to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training after boot camp with three others out of the five hundred that tried.  After Boot Camp, Rob check into BUD/S Class 208.

Rob described this twenty eight week course as “hell” (O’Neill 45).  He knew going in that only about twenty percent of people made it through.  He describes his instructors and the beyond intense physical training that they require.  He states, “Of course in BUD/S there is no future, except for the next intimidating evolution, the next beatdown.  The next time they throw you in the pool to drown” (O’Neill 43).  He described Hell Week.  Hell Week is in phase one of BUD/S and the candidates get no sleep and are constantly getting physically and mentally challenged.  The amount of people in the class started to diminish as more and more people rang the bell three times and put their helmets down.  He made it through and eventually went on to drive training.  From SCUBA training to the 5.5 nautical-mile swim, the number of candidates continued to dwindle.  Eventually, Rob completed BUD/S and went on to SEAL Team Two at twenty years of age.

   Rob and his still naive personality thought that SEALs would always be busy doing special missions.  In 1997, though, that was not what happened at all.  The SEALs haven’t seen much action since the invasion of Panama.  But, in early 2000, O’neill was on deployment in Lithuania and saw the attack on the Twin Towers.  He knew that his life was going to change and he wanted to fight.  He decided to try out for SEAL Team Six.  He knew that in this more elite team he will definitely get his chance to fight.   The training for SEAL Team Six was much more intense then BUD/S.  Instead of weeding out the sailors from the SEALs, everyone now had the no-quit mentality.  The Team Six instructors had to make sure that Rob would be able to perform at his best under the worst possible and most stressful situations.  He made it through training and met Nicole, his wife, in that time.  Before his daughter was even one year old, he went to Afghanistan to fight.

Over the coming years, Rob was constantly being deployed and was rarely home.  Throughout his novel he explains many of his most memorable missions.  The one in which he was awarded his Silver Star was one of them.  The other two memorable missions were also novels and major motion pictures, the rescue of Lone Survivor Marcus Luttrell and the rescue of Captain Phillips.  However, after these two missions, Rob had the chance of a lifetime and a chance to make history.  In 2011, Rob along with other specially selected members of the SEAL Teams were brought to Washington to discuss a secret mission.  After thinking about who they were going after, the group finally realized that they were going for Osama Bin Laden.  They training for three weeks.  Everyone in the group knew that they were going on the mission but thought that it was a one way mission.  They did not think they were coming home.  Despite this, they all went and the mission went smoothly.  Because of the way that the team entered Bin Laden’s bedroom, naturally, Rob was the one that came face to face with the man and took three shots to end his life.  Towards the end of the novel, Rob explains how hard it was to be the one that took the shots.  There was people that would constantly think he is bragging.  He planned to get out of the Navy after a helicopter crash that left thirty SEALs and a dog dead.  He was honorably discharged in 2012.  Even being out of the Navy he still receives criticism from others about the night in Osama’s bedroom, and it is not guilt that he feels.  It is the constant conflict the night caused with his peers.