Former Navy SEAL On Bin Laden's Death: 'I Slept Well'

ATLANTA -- Channel 2 is learning more about the elite team of Navy SEALs who carried out the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

It's known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or Team Six, and this may be the first time government officials have publicly acknowledged one of its missions.

"I slept well last night; I felt very proud," former Navy SEAL Dante Stephensen told Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer.

Stephensen was a Navy SEAL before there were Navy SEALs; they were called Frogmen back then.

It's a team so elite, that of his class of 126, only 11 graduated. And in the 1960s when they transitioned to SEALs, Stephensen was an operations and training officer for one of the first teams. He wasn't surprised the president called on SEALs for the bin Laden mission.

"It's a level of elation without question, it's a level of pride, it proves to the naysayers that our kind of unit is needed to help the free world stay free," said Stephensen.

He said the elite of the elite, Team Six, has always been legendary. He said you couldn't apply for that job, you had to be asked. He said he's been on dozens of dangerous missions, most of them, none of us have heard of.

"I was in in the period where there was no press, and I've got to say it would have been nice that the world knew who we were. But that was secondary, we had a job to do. I don't think the guys in Six brag about it," Stephensen said.

But they have plenty of reason to: a nearly flawless mission, with no American casualties and the body of Osama bin Laden recovered. Stephensen said the key to that kind of success is precision and training.

"If you make a mistake, you're all dead. So you create in a simulation, a movie set, the exact thing that could happen and everybody's watching, and then you critique it," said Stephensen.

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