During his time at the CIA, he served as a Station Chief on three occasions and led several counterterrorism deployments including the United States’ response to the East Africa Embassy bombings and the 9/11 attacks.

During his Air Force enlistment, Berntsen served for four years as a Crash Firefighter, including tours in Alaska and South Korea.

After completing his enlistment in the Air Force, he became a full-time college student, graduating from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a minor in Russian Studies.

[4] The mission was never executed and the CIA's indecision would lead the Northern Alliance's leader Ahmad Shah Massoud to conclude that the US was "not serious" about fighting the Taliban.

Berntsen sent the Jawbreaker team scout the area, aided by a local Afghan warlord they had paid off, where they eventually tracked Al-Qaeda and bin Laden hiding out in the Tora Bora mountain range.

[6][3] Berntsen had begun calling in airstrikes on the cave complex, using daisy cutter bombs, and was later joined by the Northern Alliance and the Special Forces.

[10] In his 2005 book, Jawbreaker, he alleges that Osama bin Laden could have been captured at Tora Bora if the US military (specifically United States Central Command) had devoted more resources to the operation.

According to both Berntsen's account and the Senate Committee's report, "Bin Laden and bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area.

The book is titled The Walk-In and tells the story of an American CIA case officer dealing with an Iranian defector from the Quds Force.

This book was written to serve as a manual for the incoming president and White House staff and includes highly specific recommendations and policy prescriptions for human intelligence and counterterrorism operations.