They are the shadowy warriors of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden: two dozen members of the Navy Seals who stormed the fortified compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden was hiding. Their identities will probably never be known; their faces will most likely never appear in photographs at the White House, on magazine covers or on television talk shows.
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But on Friday, President Obama flew to this Army air base to thank them, behind closed doors, for what he called a “job well done,” describing it as one of the greatest military and intelligence operations in American history.“This has been an historic week for the life of our nation,” Mr. Obama said later to a raucous rally of 2,300 soldiers, many of them just returned from Afghanistan. “The terrorist leader who struck our nation on 9/11 will never threaten America again.”
During the meeting with the Seal team — which Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. also attended — Mr. Obama awarded it and other units involved in the operation with a Presidential Unit Citation, the White House said. The president also received a PowerPoint presentation on the raid, with maps, photos and a scale model of the compound, from members of the assault force. Even the trained dog used in the raid attended.
The White House released few other details of the meeting, and did not mention the highly classified members of the unit by name. But Mr. Biden mentioned them several times in his speech, telling the soldiers that earlier in the day, his granddaughter exclaimed, “My Pop is going out to see the whales!”
The public rally and the private meeting amounted to a choreographed victory lap for Mr. Obama near the end of a momentous week that began with his announcement on Sunday that commandos had killed Bin Laden.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama visited ground zero in New York and met with relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, drawing a personal link between the killing of Bin Laden and the deaths his disciples inflicted on nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center.
Speaking under a giant American flag to the troops of the 101st Airborne Division, Mr. Obama drew another connection, between the soldiers there and the commandos he called “America’s quiet professionals.”
“Like all of us, they could have chosen a life of ease,” the president said. “But like you, they volunteered.”
Describing the Seal commandos as “battle hardened” and tirelessly trained, Mr. Obama said: “When I gave the order, they were ready. And in recent days, the world has learned just how ready they were.”
While the Seal team is not based here, Fort Campbell is home of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers. The unit, which pilots aircraft for Special Operations troops, flew the helicopters that carried the commandos to Bin Laden’s compound.
Mr. Obama also linked the killing of Bin Laden to the broader war, saying it showed the progress that the United States had made in disrupting and dismantling Al Qaeda. The soldiers of the 101st Airborne, he said, were pushing back insurgents and allowing Afghans to reclaim their towns.
“The bottom line is this,” he said in a statement that drew the loudest cheers of the day, “our strategy is working, and there is no greater evidence of that than justice finally being delivered to Osama bin Laden.”
Among the soldiers, there was satisfaction, if not jubilation, at the killing of Bin Laden. Several said they were relieved, though most said they did not believe it would bring the Afghan war to an end any sooner.
“It helps to know that we finally got him,” said Sgt. Marion Githens, who coordinated Army helicopters at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan before returning to the United States two days ago. But she said she was still ambivalent about the war. “Some days, you feel like it’s not going anywhere,” she said. “Other days, you think, O.K., maybe we really can help these people.”
Still, other soldiers expressed gratitude that Mr. Obama had come. “It’s tough coming home,” said Capt. Jimos Reese, a company commander. “It does mean a lot that the president cares about you.”
It was Mr. Obama’s first visit to Fort Campbell, which is accustomed to visits by the commander in chief: six have come since the Vietnam War, with former President George W. Bush making three visits, including one just after Mr. Obama was elected in 2008.
The Pentagon recommended that Mr. Obama come to Fort Campbell, a senior official said, because the soldiers of the 101st Airborne had taken significant casualties, having served in a Taliban stronghold south and west of Kandahar that is some of the most lethal terrain in Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama acknowledged that service, noting that 125 soldiers from the base had died in Afghanistan. Some of the troops in the 101st Airborne, he said, had been deployed to Afghanistan three or four times.
Among those who greeted Mr. Obama at Fort Campbell was Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, a former commando in the Seals who oversaw the raid as the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. After Mr. Obama’s arrival, the president’s motorcade left immediately for low buildings on the far side of the airfield, where the meeting with the Seal team and other units lasted more than an hour.
For all the celebration, there was still a somber tinge to Mr. Obama’s words, as he told the troops about a letter he had received from Payton Wall, a 14-year-old girl from New Jersey who wrote to him after hearing that Bin Laden was dead, about the devastating loss of her father in the 2001 terrorist attacks.
She stood near Mr. Obama on Thursday, with her mother and sister, as he laid a wreath at the 9/11 memorial plaza.
“Every year, more and more, Payton is shining through,” he said, describing how she plays lacrosse and mentors students. “For her and for all of us, this week has been a reminder of what we’re about as a people.”
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