![]() As far as I'm concerned these days they're glorified assassin teams, since that's all anyone wants them for anymore. These days I have no idea what the SEALs really are and I doubt anyone's telling the truth about them. The problem is that guys who sign up to take notes and remove coastal obstacles prior to an invasion aren't the sort to get excited over black ops, so at some point you have to recruit folks who are up for the latter sort of work. So somewhen along the line (namely the Vietnam TotesNotAWar) their mission was perverted from support operations to a catch-all for dirty work. Turns out a bunch of guys who can infiltrate the toughest fortifications, carry out missions and return with intel need training that carries over to all kinds of work. The idolization of this unit was largely political, and bloodthirsty. This job by itself is no joke these missions were extremely difficult and dangerous. learned during WW2 that amphibious landings are extremely costly, so small units dispatched in advance to gather intel and perform sabotage gave them a much better chance. The origins of Navy SEALs are coastal reconnaissance and underwater demolitions, not murder. No investigation into an unjustified killing has ever resulted in formal disciplinary action against a member of SEAL Team 6."Ĭlick to shrink.Well, we were supposed to expect support operations. He was allowed to return to the regular SEAL teams. In 2007, for example, a Gold Squadron sniper was pushed out of the unit after he killed three unarmed people - including a child - in at least two different operations. SEALs were given wide berth as long as they could explain why they made the decision to shoot an unarmed person. If a SEAL couldn’t justify the threat after a shooting, he was quietly removed from the unit. Operators and officers prided themselves on their ability to kill only those who were deemed a threat. In the early years of the war, SEAL Team 6 had an inflexible standard: Shooting people who were unarmed was forbidden and anyone who did so had to demonstrate the target had displayed hostile intent. Unlawful violence, aberrations from rules of engagement, mutilations, and disrespect of enemy casualties, actions that had been isolated at the beginning of the Afghan war, had by this point spread throughout SEAL Team 6. The lack of battlefield discipline was not limited to a single squadron. One source said his superiors repeatedly refused to address the issue. Two different sources said that over a six-year period - roughly 2005 through 2011 - battlefield reports and accounts of atrocities, particularly mutilations and taking of trophies, were ignored by SEAL Team 6 leadership. "Canoeing was just one of several acts of mutilation frequently carried out by SEALs. The Navy has charged Chief Gallagher with premeditated murder, attempted murder and nearly a dozen other offenses, including obstruction of justice and bringing “discredit upon the armed forces.” If he is convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. After his latest tour, fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq, he was named the top platoon leader in SEAL Team 7 and nominated for the Silver Star, the military’s third-highest honor.īut now, less than a year later, Special Operations Chief Gallagher, 39, is locked in the brig, facing charges that during that same deployment - his eighth - he shot indiscriminately at civilians, killed a teenage Islamic State fighter with a handmade custom blade, and then performed his re-enlistment ceremony posing with the teenager’s bloody corpse in front of an American flag. Both a lifesaving medic and a crack sniper, he was repeatedly decorated for valor and for coolheaded leadership during 19 years of combat deployments. Edward Gallagher was something special, even by the punishing standards of the Navy SEALs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |