The attack Monday morning in Pakistan have remained highlights in units that have been involved in some of America's most dangerous military missions in recent decades.
There is no debate among members of a former SEAL that whoever shot Bin Laden has done the right thing.
"It was dark, there was a lot of bullets flying around, many bodies dropping, your mission is to capture or kill Bin Laden, who knows what he's got his shirt tucked in?" Said Don Shipley, 49, a former member of the Seal who runs Extreme Seal Experience, a private training school in Chesapeake, Va. Mr. Shipley responded to the administration of previous accounts of Obama's extended firefight at the compound, but on Wednesday, government officials revised the narrative, say that the only shot fired came at the beginning of the attack, from the courier.
"It happened in the blink of an eye absolute for these people," said Mr. Shipley. "And there is a target in front of you. The cost of living possible."
Lalo Roberti, 27, a former member of the Seal who taught school Mr. Shipley and take part in a horrific rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2005, agrees. "For us to take the shot, it must be bad," said Mr. Roberti. "Especially for the '6 'people."
Inside the Navy, there are regular unclassified Seals members, organized into teams of 1 to 5 and 7 to 10. Then there is the Seal Team 6, elite elite, or, as Mr. Roberti said, "all-star team."
Seal Former members said this week that the unit - officially renamed the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or Devgru - selected for the bloody attack Bin Laden, the most high-profile operation in the history of the Seals, because the skills in the use of lethal force in the smart complex, ambiguous condition.
All members of the Seal face brutal years of preparation, including the famous six-month basic underwater demolition training in Coronado, Calif. During the "hell week," recruits get a total of four hours of sleep during five and a half days walking nonstop, swim in the cold surf and roll around in mud . About 80 percent of the candidates did not make it, at least one has died.
For those who are successful, more training and then deployment to follow. After several years in the regular Seal team, Team 6 candidates are taught to parachute from 30,000 feet with an oxygen mask and get control of the hijacked cruise ship at sea. Of the members of the Seals, about half make it.
Ryan Zinke, 49, a former member of Seal Team 6, which is now a state legislator of the Republic in Montana, said members of Team 6 has a certain personality: "I would say arrogant, arrogant."
Seal Team 6 came later as a reaction to the failed mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, when the Pentagon saw the need for what became the Special Operations Command today, with a special Navy unit focused on counterterrorism.
Seal Team 6 has a special history in the war at sea, but in the decade since the attacks of 11 September 2001, has been increasingly fought on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The size is classified, but Team 6 is estimated to double to nearly 300 since then. Overall, there are about 3,000 active-duty SEAL members, divided between the odd-numbered teams in Coronado and even-numbered teams in Virginia Beach.
Seal - standing term for a team of Sea-Air-Land - was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 as a way to expand the war is not conventional.
