TO THE JOINT SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND

For its coordination of the remarkable Operation Neptune’s Spear, which identified Osama bin Laden’s location and resulted in his death. Meshing together a plethora of military and counterterrorism information and assets into a quick, clean and successful operation capped a three-decade effort to build an elite force of special operators and a 10-year hunt for bin Laden. Things could have gone wrong — as illustrated by the loss of a top-secret helicopter during the raid — but JSOC delivered a triumph. It was not luck. It was the culmination of meticulous work coordinated by a command that has gradually won the respect and cooperation of conventional forces and intelligence agencies and which has honed its ability to conduct precision raids to an industrial scale.