We set up a kind of a little command center there.

So the infamous picture of the White House in the sit room,

we were on the other side of that VTC with Bill McRaven in theater in Afghanistan,

Panetta, that Langley and in the White House,

and ability to pull off that event in secrecy and under the cover of night undetected.

At the time that the helicopter, when the helicopter settled on the wall, and, you know,

literally the wheel caught just right or that thing would have been in flames.

And, you know, some of the operators that I do part of the team quite, quite, quite well that were a part of that,

how they were able to respond

and conduct the different, what they trained for down in North Carolina.

Welcome to Combat Story. I'm Ryan Fuget and I serve Warzone Tours as an Army attack

helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15-year career. I'm fascinated by the experiences

of the elite in combat. On this

show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines.

This is combat story. Today's combat story is with our first Navy Vice Admiral, Mike Lefevre,

who spent 38 years in uniform supporting the U.S. national security

apparatus across the world. Rising from an Annapolis wrestler to a surface warfare officer,

Mike was selected to command a strike group, would serve at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan as the

head military officer during the bin Laden raid, and finished his military career as the director of

strategic operational planning at NCTC, the National Counterterrorism Center within the office

of the DNI. Mike has gone on to write a book about leading through crises titled Endgame First,

a leadership strategy for navigating a crisis, and since leaving service has stayed very busy with roles

...