--- title: "Delta bans former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill after he posted a photo of himself without a mask on a flight" date: "2020-08-20" modified: "2020-08-20" authors: - name: "Jared Keller" job_title: "Former Managing Editor" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/robert-oneill-twitter-meltdown-face-masks/" categories: - "Around the World" - "Military Branches" - "Navy" - "News" - "United States" tags: - "Covid-19" - "Navy SEALs" - "special operations command" --- # Delta bans former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill after he posted a photo of himself without a mask on a flight ![]() *Update: Since this article was published, Rob O'Neill [says]() that Delta has banned him from traveling on its passenger planes.* https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1296534885230956545 Robert O'Neill, the Navy SEAL veteran who purportedly fired the shot that killed Osama Bin Laden, is having a rough one on Twitter — all over the perceived indignity of having to wear a face mask. On Tuesday, O'Neill posted a photo of himself to Twitter aboard a Delta flight without a protective face mask, despite the fact that the United States is still in the middle of a major novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The photo was accompanied with a simple message: "I'm not a pussy." O'Neill later deleted the tweet, but here's a screenshot: There are a few things troubling about this tweet. First, traveling in a public place without a face mask currently violates about every decent counter-COVID-19 order known to man, mostly because masks don't just protect the wearer but halt the potential spread of the virus to others, [according to]() the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Second, there's a gentleman in a USMC hat in the background that we assume is a Marine veteran, which makes this tweet an accidental example of a sailor shitting on a Marine ([to his credit, O'Neil says he didn't even see the guy behind him]()). But third, O'Neill's tweet didn't disappear on its own, because Mr. Scary Navy SEAL's wife apparently deleted it for him: https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1296151889667657728 But it's OK because it was just a joke, you guys! https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1296189121174659074 https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1296192790628651008 https://twitter.com/mchooyah/status/1296156904771784704 So to be clear: the man who purportedly shot Osama Bin Laden spent all day basically melting down on Twitter over having to wear a face mask *for the good of everyone*. O'Neill did not immediately respond to Task & Purpose's request for comment. In the meantime I'm just going to leave this here: https://twitter.com/actioncookbook/status/1296157268648632320 ## Author Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications. ### Author social links [Twitter]() [Facebook]() [LinkedIn]() [Instagram]()