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Comment by lawgimenez | Hacker News Reader

What made you think Seals are primadonnas? Does this apply to other special forces too?

They don't do anything without $40 billion of air assets circling their position providing cover and get pissy when you tell them they have to shave and can't paint their weapons arbitrary colors.

Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds.

> Also they're all on drugs and will kill you if you report them for embezzling unit funds.

This is maybe not too related to the brain damage stuff (or maybe it is?), but I don't think the wider public knows nearly enough about the frankly shocking kinds and amounts of criminality in the various US special forces units. OP is not kidding about these people operating as gangs (but worse, because they're sanctioned killers).

A smattering of such behavior:

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/07/internal-study-defe...

https://news.usni.org/2021/01/24/seal-sentenced-to-10-years-...

https://abc7chicago.com/us-navy-seals-seal-training-drugs-in...

The journalist (and Army vet, iirc) Seth Harp does yeoman's work on this topic, and is a good Twitter follow. He's got several excellent long-form investigative articles, often for Rolling Stone. Here's one on the rampant murders (ongoing!) at Fort Bragg that the Army won't talk about:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-b...

And another one about rampant drug deaths at ... also Fort Bragg:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/inside...

I think it's time to have a big cultural conversation about how much our current era of spec ops worship is worth all the war crimes and other less-than-normative behavior.

Every time I bring up the military, I get down voted. That's because (I believe) suggesting anything is wrong with military spending, military behaviour, or foreign adventures, is simply off limits.

Discussing or criticizing anything military related us seen as disrespectful to troops, and Killing the argument there kills more problematic questions (like 'was the invasion of Iraq a symptom of a larger problem like a too-bloated budget?')

One can appreciate those choices served, and support their assimilation into society, while at the same time questioning military ideals, spending levels, and behaviors.

And yes, training people to function well in situations that are borderline suicidal, training them to follow orders that put them in harms way, is going to have psychological effects on at least some of them. When you train people to behave abnormally you shouldn't be terribly surprised at abnormal behaviour patterns.

I say this as an ex military person myself. There are a lot of questions worth asking, but unfortunately society would prefer to remain ignorant. It's easier to live guilt free if "we didn't know".

With the war in Ukraine, I have a newfound appreciation for defense spending and intelligence gathering(We know Russia was going to invade), while at the same time I am able to view Afghanistan and Iraq as disastrous and unnecessary as well questioning indiscriminate surveillance and other immoral activities done under our name.

I don't know exactly what our military budget should be. It is probably undoubtedly bloated and perhaps full of white elephants, while we're underspending in some area. It seems that the peace dividend is over.

> Discussing or criticizing anything military related us seen as disrespectful to troops, and Killing the argument there kills more problematic questions (like 'was the invasion of Iraq a symptom of a larger problem like a too-bloated budget?')

I've seen this too, and it doesn't make sense to me either. Asking if it we shouldn't have sent our troops to do something isn't being disrespectful, IMHO; they didn't choose to go do the thing that shouldn't have been done; I'd like to ensure we respect the troops by only sending them on appropriate missions. I can respect the people, and not the mission.

> In late May, a 21-year-old enlisted man from California was killed — beheaded, in fact — while on a camping trip with six of his fellow paratroopers; once again, no arrests have been made in the case.

What the flying fuck!?

I only lightly skimmed that article, but holy shit. I couldn't take much before I had to bail.

It isn’t just in SPECOPS. A lot of the current mess going on in society with politics is about ‘as long as they do what we need them to do, crimes don’t matter’ too.

RIP Pat Tillman

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Tillman

There are a lot of factors around military members and civilian law enforcement. Generally civilian law enforcement will let the military handle their own under UCMJ. Under UCMJ they can lose rank, retirement benefits, or get jail time and a dishonorable discharge. The prospect of losing retirement could be earth shattering g for these guys I imagine. Further complications are these SOF people have A LOT of classified information. The government absolutely does not want them testifying under oath about anything.

UCMJ can take a long time to process similar to civilian cases. All that time the accused is with their unit, as usual.

> they're all on drugs

To be fair to the SEALs, this is every US SF unit.

Different roles. Everyone has a part to play but SF relies upon relative superiority. Assets and ignoring military customs which do not increase effectiveness and lethality are requirements to get the job done. An infantry company is more able to defend its position than a troop of SF without heavy weapons if bogged down. Camouflage works and when you're rolling multicam with a black gun it reduces its effectiveness.

I sense a lot of bitterness.

I doubt there would be as much bitterness if the "silent professionals" didn't write so many books about what incredible badasses they are.

Are they? a farmer shoots one of them in the leg and they nuke a town? there is a reason that medals for bravery don't goto SF but to forgotten army guards who die defending little hinterland hillforts against insurgency. sf era is closing rapidly with flying ieds getting everywhere..

    > they're all on drugs

Steriods? I have heard similar.

They take PEDs or street drugs?

PEDs.

See the Kyle Mullen death during the SEAL entry testing[0] and subsequent policy to test for PEDs[1].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32656856

[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/20/navy-seals-st...

I anectodally heard that some US special forces soldiers joined the Ukraine war, but after a few weeks of getting shelled, being wet and cold and not getting three square meals and a bed to sleep in, they packed up and went home.

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