Comments on: SEAL Mission Creep

By: Bruce Schlesman

Bruce Schlesman — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:49:08 +0000

The SEALS are the invincible. THey’re like ghosts you don’t find them unless they decide to let you. They are suffering from low recruitment, stress and mission creep bit they don’t need much men to get the job done. The government can’t take any more SEALS because they are very high upkeep.

By: Joel

Joel — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:26:10 +0000

I’d say one of the biggest causes of attrition is that once you’re a SEAL, re-enlisting could literally cost you a million dollars in salary differential from working for a PMC. Even a consulting job from Halliburton or any of thousands of security conscious countried could be deep into 6 figures without the risk that your family never gets to see you again.
My brother is a Naval Nuclear Engineer, think he’s re-enlisting? He can make 150k a year in any nuclear power plant in the country when he gets out.

By: Danish Special Operations Forces

Danish Special Operations Forces — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:29:09 +0000

Very interesting reading. Both our Army Special Operations Forces and our Navy Special Operations Forces (SEALs) needs more soldiers too.
Seems like there just isn’t a way to suddenly produce twice as many SOF operators as the year before?

By: stephen russell

stephen russell — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:03:31 +0000

Maybe relive the WW2 movie DIRTY DOZEN– use Convicts for Spec Forces
Problem: Gang ties & other issues.
Otherwise Ideal for SEAL Ops.
Have implant for Tracking
NO Leave or Liberty
Or under tight control.
Same training as other SEALs.
Dine seperate from Main SEAL Units.
Might help Manpower alone.
Empty some US prisons of inmates alone.
Do the Mission & Live OR Die.

By: Masterguns

Masterguns — Thu, 10 May 2007 04:11:14 +0000

After 35 years of being swift,silent and deadly
old school force recon.I can say with certainty
that idiots at the top is not that big of an assumption.The huge budget that these ready action forces have and the fact that their all
dressed up and have no place to go and whinning
about it,they need to earn their keep,they need to work or its wasted talent and dedication.We can
not afford to water down the training,we cannot in good faith waste their talents.Have not said this much since the last butter bar I ate for lunch! Guns Gone

By: Mburumba

Mburumba — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:48:26 +0000

Judging by what’s in the public domain over these past fews years since the beginning of the GWOT training foreign militaries aka FID is mission somewhere between bottom and bottom-last of publicly acknowledged SEAL missions. The primary cause of burn-out in the SEAls, as in other branches of the US military involved in the “bayonet-point” of the GWOT, is the very high op-tempo this new type of war has engendered.

By: Camp

Camp — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:06:18 +0000

I recall an incident at Patilla Airfield during Operation Just Cause, highlighting the problems of mission overlap.
http://www.specwarnet.net/miscinfo/patilla.htm
.
Wasn’t USSOCOM created to define such boundary’s & coordinate SOFs to prevent mission overlap? I wonder if this story should be more about force management by USSOCOM & the branch services. Or maybe it’s just that everyone wants to be ‘Special’ these days.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:12:20 +0000

Good old Leathernecks!

By: Rick F

Rick F — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:40:06 +0000

Army Special Forces (aka Green Berets) are the folks supposed to be training foreign militaries. That’s been one of their core missions since the early 1960s.
SEALS, unless something’s changed, are more of a special-mission force for specific “shooting” tasks.
But this is another case of how our SOF capabilities are being misused in the so-called GWOT: The Army SF is being used as “door kickers” and the SEALs are used for military training. Talk about role-reversals!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:35:53 +0000

When a SOCOM flag officer talks about Special Forces doing something I’d tend to assume that he means exactly what he says. Is there any evidence when he talked about Special Forces he didn’t mean Army Special Forces? Unlike some journalists he probably can remember just what each is called, what they do and can probably use the terminology correctly.
It’s possibly that he can’t (which would be interesting in itself) but assuming that the deputy commander of SOCOM is an idiot seems like a pretty big assumption.
As I haven’t been hired to write this stuff I don’t have time to go look up exactly what he did say to the Senate, but you might consider that instead of taking a 3rd hand interpretation of what someone claims he said it might make sense for those who are doing this professionally to LOOK IT UP before writing stories based on the assumption that the guy doesn’t know the difference between SF and SEAL missions.