A SEAL team at sixes and sevens?!

What's the deal with SEAL Team 6? The normally uber-secretive and ultra-elite unit has been making a lot of news of late, and not for what was their most recent claim to fame - the elimination of a certain terrorist nemesis of the USA. As impressed as we all were with the sophistication with which they carry out the most dangerous of missions, we totally expected them to slip back under the cloak of secrecy following the big result in Pakistan. 

However, it's beginning to appear that the individuals themselves have begun to hanker for some of the Hollywood-style heroics that their Commander-in-Chief has had much more access to, freely mingling with the big names amidst the cameras in a blaze of glory that some clearly feel is more theirs, than his. 

In fact, several currently-serving and former US Navy SEALs spoke out during the lengthy Obama campaign expressing their desire that the President stopped taking credit for killing bin Laden thereby using them as a tool for his reelection. I was quite astounded by this, given the normally gung-ho sentiment and cloak of silence as modus operandi which surrounds special forces in general. Speaking out against a sitting President would usually be seen as something on the edge of treason. Look what happened to McChrystal for doing so, for example!

Next we had a former member of SEAL Team 6 who served on the raid that got bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan wanting his moment in the spotlight via the almost unthinkable action of publishing a book on the subject.  "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden" got the author (written by a "Mark Owen" but otherwise known as Matt Bissonette) into some hot water for not letting the government vet the book, even though he took legal advice before accepting a publishing deal. 

The thing that shocked me was that the author was a veteran hardline Navy SEAL who had earned five Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart during a stellar career - these are not the types who usually break tradition and want to reveal anything about their operations, never  mind release something that can be considered as classified and/or in any way jeopardize the safety of any current SEAL Team member. 

I suppose that the rather unique target that SEAL Team 6 was after in Pakistan that night makes for a story with much greater appeal than normal, but even then the SEALs are bound by such a code of silence that one would not have expected to see a SEAL author the story so soon after the raid. You can be sure that neither did the Commander-in-Chief nor the government itself for that matter. 

I don't know whether the book was a factor in the newer scandal surrounding SEAL Team 6 or if it would have happened anyway, but it sure begins to feel that other members began to feel that Bissonette was perhaps going to get all the glory, after Obama got all the glory. So then someone else must have decided to get a piece of the pie before it was all eaten up. 

We hear now that seven other members of SEAL Team 6 (one of whom was involved in the bin Laden raid) have been disciplined by the Navy for further releasing classified information to aid, unbelievably, in the making of a video game! This takes the pervasion of video games-as-real life a whole lot further and just seems totally incongruous with SEAL philosophy and principle.

The seven SEALs involved (and four others still under investigation) are charged with having divulged classified information in the making of "Medal of Honor: Warfighter", the name of which basically tells you all you need to know about the content. It's not just that doing so violates a code of conduct, but in both this case as well as that of author Matt Bissonette, there is a non-disclosure agreement that SEALs must sign as part and parcel of their jobs. All such disclosures are subject to American law, as well as team ethos.

Given the true heroism of what these SEALs did and what other elite forces are expected to do, I am pretty sure that there is little desire to forward the individuals to judicial process whereby they could actually end up in jail, but I don't expect the tolerance to extend much further. Future transgressions are likely to be met with more serious repercussions. I still cannot believe that they were willing to trivialize what they do for something as banal as a video game, one which could be seen to put SEAL operations at risk.

Maybe they all knew that Obama was likely to be forgiving following a successful return to the White House, so they could milk the opportunity for a little extra cash and attention? Or perhaps it's an aspect of modern American life in that celebrity and fame and Hollywood are more dominant than ever, not least due to their example being a President who spends more time in Hollywood among Hollywood types than any President in history? 

I would suggest that it is time for the Commander-in-Chief to go back to living like one, and put Hollywood and celebrity back on the back-burner; there will be plenty of time for Hollywood later, it will be waiting for him in the years when he is no longer supposed to be a Commander-in-Chief. Hell, there could even be a new video game where he is SEAL Team Six leader, and he is the one who gets to nail bin Laden personally. He sure would get a kick out of that, it seems!

Given their own new-found desire for the spotlight though, I somehow imagine that there would be outcry, if not a lawsuit from a bunch of ex-SEALs, if the faces involved in the raid belonged to Obama, Biden, Clinton and the rest of that gang! ;) 
Kevin Mc