Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Are you Going to Read "No Easy Day?"

One Navy SEALS's Memoir of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden

This 9/11 there is a lot of controversy surrounding the bookNo Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden.

The book is written by Mark Owen, (pen name), one of the Navy SEAL's that raided of Osama bin Laden's compound the night Osama bin Laden was killed and the winning co-author Kevin Mauer.

The controversy surrounds whether the book violates confidentiality agreements and leaks information about national security.  But, Janet Maslin of the New York Times says, "...his book is careful to avoid all but the most basic information about his SEAL experiences, and its emphasis is on the close-up experience of a team member in action not on the big picture policy questions that determine how he has been deployed."

Peter Bergen of The Washington Posts says, "Of course, the readers who are lining up to buy 'No Easy Day' are not doing so to read just another SEAL memoir. They want to know exactly what happened the night bin Laden was killed and what it felt like to be on that mission.

Owen and Maurer do not disappoint. They take the reader on a roller-coaster ride, opening the book with Owen on the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed within the first seconds of the SEAL team’s arrival at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan."

See the 60 Minutes interview with the Navy SEAL who wrote the book "No Easy Day" by clicking here.

Whether you decide to read the Navy SEAL's tell-all book or not, many children find the killing of Osama bin Laden to be a moral dilemma. A friend of mine who is a high school teacher says her students don't understand why Navy Seals had to kill the man. The moral conflict for some teens exists because the killing of Osama bin Laden does not bring back the 3,000 American's he killed.

The web site 9-11 Heroes explains that one of the most important things is to make sure that children know that they can talk to you, ask questions, and open up about their fears and other emotions. Children and teens need caring adults they can feel is concerned about them and that they can trust and be open with. Click here to read the tips for talking to kids about 9/11.



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