'No Easy Day': six top revelations from book on the bin Laden mission

The Navy SEAL Team 6 operators hand-picked to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in 2011 had some unwelcome surprises waiting for them as they hit the ground, according to Matt Bissonnette in his controversial book “No Easy Day.” The training that went into the mission included key help from female operators, practical jokes, and an audition of sorts for top US officials, who watched it before deciding whether the Special Operations Forces should go ahead with the raid.

- Anna Mulrine, Staff writer

4. The SEALs enjoyed practical jokes, even as they were preparing for missions

Pranks were so frequent within Bissonnette’s SEAL squadron ranks that the operators “eventually built a wire diagram connecting all the suspected culprits,” he writes. “We used this same wire diagram to track terrorists.”

Pranks included cutting shoelaces and demagnetizing credit cards with large magnets. One of the most popular pranks involved “glitter bombing.”

“I don’t know how many pouches and uniforms I had to replace,” Bissonnette laments, “because purple glitter was caked on Velcro or trapped in the folds of fabric.”