9NEWS NOW May 04, 2011
SEAL Team 6 Who Killed Osama Bin Laden Brags - Quietly
By Bruce Leshan
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Officially, they don't exist.
But we all know now that SEAL Team Six, the deadly warriors who shot the most-wanted terrorist on Earth, are based on a quiet road between Virginia Beach and Sandbridge, Virginia.
Officially, the team is now known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU.
Sometimes called The Quiet Professionals, commanders are now warning SEAL Team 6 members to maintain even greater operational security after their Bin Laden mission. The fight's not over.
"Since post 9/11 kicked off, the amount of successful operations has just been staggering," SEAL Lt. Rorke Denver told CBS last year.
The team got it's start in failure. It was formed after the botched 1980 operation to rescue the hostages in Iran.
There was no way the team was going to let another broken chopper ruin Sunday's mission to get Bin Laden. "This was not going to be another Desert One," says Joseph Trevithick of GlobalSecurity.org.
This is the same team that captured Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega....The same team that rescued cargo ship captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates.
The Seals work so often now with the CIA some call them the Agency's Praetorian Guard.
"Basically, it's brilliance in the basics," says retired Gen. James Marks. "They don't do anything that's super special. They just do everything they're supposed to do, the blocking and tackling, exceptionally well."
Their training on the other hand, is about the toughest in the world. "If there are any NFL players watching this telecast, SEAL training is worse," says retired Navy Capt. Joe Denigro.
While the Army's Delta Force has focused on Iraq, the SEALS have taken the lead in Afghanistan. Killing Bin Laden has given them bragging rights... even if they're unlikely to talk about it.
"It's another operation, there're a lot more of them to go," says retired Cmd. Dan Hendrickson, who once led SEAL Team 1. His son is now a SEAL leader. "Hopefully our guys are going to be both capable and safe."
In the past year, Special Ops counter-terror raids in Afghanistan have quadrupled. What's unusual about the Bin Laden raid is that we heard about it.
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