No Easy Day

No Easy Day 

Book Review by Alex T.

The book I chose to discuss is one that not only is a great piece of American military non fiction literature, but it is one that takes us as close to the truth as we can possibly venture. “No Easy Day”, a memoir by Navy Seal Mark Owen, details the years of preparation and training leading up to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. When he first entered his training for SEAL Team Six, Owen wouldn’t settle for anything until he reached the top of the military food chain. Many moments of triumph, hardship, and even pure misery and woe affected Owen. After the long and challenging trial, Owen was finally accepted on the best special operations team the United States of America had to offer– SEAL Team Six. Throughout the memoir, Owen details some of his smaller missions leading up to the killing of Bin Laden, the most notable of these being the rescue of Captain Phillips. However, the killing of Bin Laden was the main detail of this book. The mission that SEAL Team Six carried out didn’t go exactly as planned, but even with that adversity, they ended up accomplishing their mission. They killed Osama Bin Laden, and because of these men, the world is still a much safer place.

This book is mostly spectacular, but it has some points that I wish were fixed. The first of these points are the length of the book in the beginning. I found that the memoir had some lengthy patches, which made me find it hard to follow along at times. This brings me to my next criticism. When Owen was detailing his life on duty, sometimes the parts would grow to such a length, that it would stray away from the objective of the book. This was the main reason I had some trouble following along with the book. I also felt like the book took too long getting to the scene where they killed Bin Laden. The book is about four-fifths leading up to the mission, and one-fifth detailing the mission. The book also had too many acronyms, but that is needed to shorten sentences and make the book run smoother.

Even though the book had some rough patches, I felt like it could go down as one of the greatest American non-fiction military novels ever. The detailing of the mission was so thorough, I could picture exactly what was going on from the book in my head easier than most of the other books I’ve ever read. After reading this memoir, it made me feel very patriotic and thankful that men like Mark Owen would go through that great of a length to protect America. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the United States armed forces, and wonders what it takes to be the best of the best. Mark Owen is a great role model; a person who doesn't see giving up as an option and strives to unlock every ounce of potential he has. If there were more people with the same values and principles as Owen, then the world would be a much better place. I learned that great things– even things that can change the course of our world– can happen if we strive to be our greatest. For these reasons, I hope the message of this book can be absorbed by many.