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"  Six weeks ago, we published an important story about the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden. The piece both recounted his experience of the mission and, as importantly, described his life since leaving the service. It was a compelling story \u2014 both for the telling detail of the raid and for the portrait it drew of his difficult transition from the military he served for 16 years to civilian life. The story was more than a year in the making, in part because of the painstaking reporting involved but mostly because The Shooter (as the SEAL was called, for his safety and the safety of his family) was deeply conflicted about telling his story. He was aware that if he told his story, some in the SEAL community would see it as a betrayal. But he eventually decided to tell his story to shine a light on the need to provide greater support for the elite forces who bear more and more of the burden of the modern way of warfare. Within hours of the release of the story, Wired reported that a spokesman for Special Operations Command had released a statement saying that they had no issues with the story. The day after the story came out in February, I spent an entire day with the Shooter on Capitol Hill, lobbying the leadership of both houses of congress and the chairmen and ranking members of the pertinent committees on the needs and challenges elite operators face upon separation from the services, and on the need to rethink the military pension system and retirement health care benefits to provide more adequately for elite special forces and their families once their service is done. Most of the legislators we met with had been deeply briefed on the mission and every one of them appeared to find the Shooter to be credible. He was humble but determined. He only rarely spoke of the bin Laden mission \u2014 instead focusing on the unique toll their service takes on elite warriors and making the case that they deserved special attention when they exit the military. I have written about this visit here. Further, it is critical to note that the Shooter has profited in no way from cooperating with Esquire and Phil Bronstein to tell his story - Esquire did not pay The Shooter for his account, he has not sold his story to anyone as a book or movie, nor has profit or personal recognition been his motive in discussing his experiences in preparing for and executing the raid at Abbottabad.  Yesterday, CNN issued a report that attempted to cast doubt on The Shooter&amp;#039;s account of the mission and on whether he was the man who was responsible for killing Osama bin Laden. To be clear: Esquire and Phil Bronstein, the veteran journalist and writer of the story, object to CNN&amp;#039;s report in the strongest possible terms. By stark contrast with Bronstein&amp;#039;s thoroughgoing 15,000 word report, the CNN story constitutes a mere act of assertion. As far as can be gleaned from the report, it is based on the opinion of one current SEAL who was not on the bin Laden mission and who therefore could not have first-hand knowledge of it. It is little more than gossip. Esquire&amp;#039;s story remains the most thoroughly reported account of the raid and of the death of Osama bin Laden. There were 23 SEAL Team 6 members on the mission. The Shooter was without doubt one of them. Only two of the 23 were the first to arrive on the third floor of the residence, where bin Laden was killed. Multiple members of SEAL Team 6 confirmed that The Shooter was one of those two and reported to us that it was known within the unit that The Shooter had fired the fatal shots. Other individuals briefed on the mission confirmed this to us.  I urge you to read the story here. It is convincing on its own merits and it is supported by our reporting. We stand by our story. David Granger Editor in Chief Esquire Read the full story on &amp;quot;The Shooter&amp;quot; by Phil Bronstein &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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