One former SEAL Team 6 leader who was involved in the raid told me he was never too concerned about the discrepancies between ONeills and Bissonnettes claims. Lexington, VA 24450, VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTELexington, Virginia 24450General Information:(540) 464-7230Admissions:admissions@vmi.edu. He has served four combat tours of duty in Iraq. xvi DEVGRU's commander at the time of. After securing several detainees and cordoning the area, Hyder and his men waited for their helicopters to arrive and extract them. Van Hooser was a hugely respected Marine in Vietnam who laterally transferred to the Navy to become a SEAL. The texture of those accounts reveals much about what went wrong with the most celebrated special operations command in the U.S. military. 21 (2012): 7258-66. Although Bissonnette was able to sell a book and tell his story first, ONeill arguably got the better deal. The power of the Native American mascot, he said, was not to be dismissed. The two leading officers at the command, Moore and Szymanski, were informed that small groups in each of the three squadrons were mutilating and desecrating combatants in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Green Team is every bit the gut check for seasoned operators that BUD/S is to fresh recruits, although the two present very different experiences. AKA: James E . Several of their teammates on the mission had to intervene, according to a former SEAL Team 6 operator. This directive had one primary purpose: to protect U.S. forces from accusations of unjustified killings by Afghan government officials. Yet immediately after the mission, ONeill described shooting bin Laden while he was on the floor. By the time the two dozen Red Team operators departed for Objective Bull, tension had built up between Hyder, a commissioned officer, and the enlisted operators technically under his command. A former ST6 operator relayed a story in which a pilot remarked how markedly different ST6 had become in comparison with the loud, obnoxious, gun-waving attitude of Marcinkos SEALs.xi, Still reputed to be more cowboy than their Army counterparts, DEVGRU was perhaps best described by a modern-era operator as a ragtag bunch of professionals.xii, Another of the key leaders who spurred DEVGRUs ascension alongside his own was Adm. Eric Thor Olson. Captain Pete Van Hooser began his military career as a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute having served as the Regimental Commander of the Corps of Cadets. The operation commanded high-level interest because Norgrove, though in Afghanistan as an aid worker for DAI, an American NGO, secretly worked with Britains MI-6, according to four U.S. military and intelligence sources. Over . Early in the war, the SEALs mission was to hunt down al Qaedas senior leaders, who had largely vanished into Pakistan, but now Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the leader of JSOC, extended the mission to target the Taliban, whoalong with al Qaeda weremoving back and forth across the Pakistani border with impunity. The SEALs had been specifically asked to avoid shooting bin Laden in the face. Three of them, however, are currently still in the training pipeline, one for SWCC and two attempting to become SEALs. Senior leaders at the command knew the grisly circumstances of Robertss death had unsettled Red Team. xiv Tech. Its operators are part of an elite, clandestine cadre. There are a number of interrelated reasons that help to explain exactly how ST6 ascended to the position of being selected for such a vitally important tasking. He kept moving toward us, so at 15 meters I put one round in him and he dropped. Lt. Col. Gadson served as the very first VMI Leader-in-Residence. Hyder, who was the ground force commander for the Kandahar operation, was cleared in an after-action review of the shooting. The discussion covered battlefield ethics. The list also includes Britt Slabinski, who was blacklisted in 2015 following the New York Times article that quoted him denying hed ever ordered his men to kill unarmed Afghan targets. His work seeks to strengthen the citizenry and their communities through the interdisciplinary collaboration involving social entrepreneurship & investment, arts & design, food & drink, outdoors & recreation, new media and knowledge, and good government including politics, policy, and citizenship. As a result, Howard became popular among the enlisted SEALs under his command, several of whom defended and praised him. There was a lot of chaos. Slabinski hadtold his operators that he wanted a head on a platter. Although some of the more seasoned SEALs took the statement metaphorically, at least one operator took Slabinski at his word, interpreting it as an order. According to multiple SEAL Team 6 sources, the events of that day set off a cascade of extraordinary violence. F: 540-464-7396 . Top right: A bearded Red Squadron SEAL in Afghanistan. The SEALs successes throughout 2002 resulted in the Joint Special Operations Command choosing the unit to lead the hunt for al Qaeda, as well as the invasion of Baghdad in March 2003. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. Howard, who has since risen through the ranks and is currently a rear admiral, was twice rejected by his superiors for advanced SEAL Team 6 training. For some of them, what was most troubling was not that Hyder mighthave taken gratuitous revenge for Robertss death on an unrelated civilian, but that on more than one occasion, as ground force commander, he had fired his own weapon to neutralize perceived threats. The operator accused of the attempted beheading has experienced difficulties as a result of his service. A SEAL who spoke Arabic interviewed bin Ladens wives and daughters until he was able to get two positive identifications. As he approached the third floor bedroom, Red saw bin Laden standing in the doorway, peering out. What had been deemed crippling liabilities of SEAL Team Six by Delta commandos and Army Rangers just a decade earlier (mission planning in particularxxi) were now being held up as core competencies. Gary . I mean, he was dead, but people have got nerves. The squadrons commanding officer recorded it on a cellphone. Since the 1980s, when Red Team was first created, there were many operators in the unit who had experienced a metamorphosis of identity and persona into Native American warriors. Her visit will take place March 8-13. Yes, we they committed war crimes. Administrative Assistant During this ceremony, the SEAL remarked that his awards represented the. Those skills are the basis on which CT units perform a variety of precision direct action missions, from hostage rescue ops to HVT raids. At that point, the second inquiry was commissioned by the SEAL Team 6 commanding officer, Pete Van Hooser. Men, women, and a small girl, motionless and in the fetal position, appeared dead. When SEAL Team 6 first deployed to Afghanistan in January 2002, the commandhad three assault teams, Red, Blue, and Gold, each with a mascot. The operation, code-named ANSTRUTHER, an homage to Norgroves Scottish heritage, was authorized by British Prime Minister David Cameron. One former SEAL Team 6 senior leadersaid that he and others at the command were concerned that the scale and intensity of the violence in Iraq was so great that U.S. operators might be tempted to engage in retaliatory mutilations, a tactic al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency sometimes employed. Sources at SEAL Team 6 who were present during the operation estimated the number of dead was between 17 and 20. He also claimed that bin Laden had been standing when he fired and that a weapon was visible nearby. In a new campaign ad, the SEAL PAC said the SEAL veterans Ryan Zinke, Brady Duke, Derrick Van Orden, Eli Crane, Morgan Luttrell and Ed Thelander 'have one grave threat left to defeat' over an image of House Speaker Nancy . She and her husband, Dr. Patrick J. Bingham, have two adult children: Dr. Tava M. Bingham and Mr. Phillip J. Bingham. So many dead bodies, so many, everywhere, and so the potential opportunities for mutilations were great.. A retired noncommissioned officer who tried to police the unit said the command suffered from unspoken oaths of allegiance among both the officers and the operators, and that the first instinct when misconduct surfaced was to protect the command and then the men rather than hold bad actors accountable. Frontiers in Neuroanatomy 6. A veteran of hundreds of raids and assaults during his career, the former SEAL said he disagreed with the order to kill bin Laden, regardless of whether he was armed, and compared it to Britt Slabinskis order to his Blue Squadron men in 2007. Inside the helicopters, some of the operators had pushed to hold off any air attack, arguing that they had plenty of time to intercept the convoy before it reached the Pakistani border. After a joint British-American investigation into the operation identified the failures and recommended that only the SEAL who threw the grenade be punished, McRaven personally traveled to Dam Neck and determined that all three SEALs involved in the cover-up should be thrown out of SEAL Team 6. They had bonded over Robertss death. I enlisted because I wanted to earn a place within an elite brotherhood. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Your teammates beside and behind you will cover all the other possible angles and areas of a room as you move forward. Top left: Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette in2001. Instead, he heldthemback long enough for his teammates, including ONeill, to enter the bedroom. Bissonnette left Red Squadron soon after the raid and retired from the Navy almost one year later. The truth is that such stuff only galvanizes the enemy.. Van Orden joined the Navy when he was 18 and served 26 years before retiring as a senior chief in the SEALs, having been deployed into combat five times, according to his website. Several weeks earlier, in January 2002, Hyder killed an unarmed Afghan man north of Kandahar during the units first ground assault of the war. They have an internal process that they think is sufficient and they are not inclined to cooperate unless they absolutely have to. Raser, who conducted investigations into both regular SEAL units and SEAL Team 6, said that in her experience, SEALs simply didnt report wrongdoing by their teammates. Olson, who commanded SEAL Team Six from 1994-1997, became the first SEAL to head the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 2007,xiii a position he held until retiring just months following Operation Neptune Spear. In September 2005, he became CEO/Chairman of the Board of Digital Fusion, a publicly traded company, valued at $61M with approximately 300 employees. Operation Red Wings-2005. Red came to a stop and fired two shots with his suppressed rifle. Made up of no more than 200 SEAL operators when the Afghan war began, SEAL Team 6 was the lesser known of the U.S. military's elite "special mission" units. The database contains photographs of persons killed by SEAL operators during their missions and other mission documentation. Bissonnettes bestselling book, No Easy Day, was published in September 2012, four months after he retired and less than two weeks after ONeill got out of the Navy. There were no heroics, and, apart from al Kuwaitis shots, no firefight. By all accounts, Slabinski, a second-generation SEAL who joined Team 6 in 1993, was an excellent sniper and reconnaissance operator. Those are the words of US Navy SEAL Captain Pete Van Hooser and they were the motivating factor behind my every action while I was enlisted. Commenting on the ability of ST6 operators to flow through targets as a cohesive unit (similar to the scenario that presented itself in the bin Laden takedown), he opined, We werent just good at multiple-room CQB; there is no one else in the world that comes close.xlvi, Those who make the cut are subjected to a draft in which each of the assault squadrons takes turns selecting their new operators of preference based on reputation and Green Team performance.xlvii, At last confirmation, DEVGRU maintained four assault squadrons. This was about 40% of all the recorded Van Hooser's in USA. The rise of JSOC as the sharp tip of Americas military effort led to a similar increase in size and responsibility for SEAL Team 6 in the early years of Americas two post-9/11 wars. Bissonnette was viewed by Howard as the prototypical SEAL Team 6 operator: a college-educated enlisted man with a savvy understanding of tactics and technology. Heath fired once, hitting the man, sending him tumbling down the back side of the small rise. One result of the growth was that back in Virginia, the captain in command of the entire 300-SEAL force had far less oversight over tactical battlefield decisions. We killed bad guys. They dont play by the rules, so why should we?, The Intercept submitted three pages of questions to both Adm.Szymanksi, who as head of Naval Special Warfare now commands all SEALs in the Navy, and Capt. It was Captain Perry F. "Pete" Van Hooser, III, who actually informed the operators of ST6's Red Squadron that Operation Neptune Spear had been approved. (Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Henderson/U.S. These small teams of CIA, Seal Team 6, and Afghan commandos operated under the agencys Title 50 authority, which governs covert activities. After the bodies were recovered, Hyder and the other members of Red Team were forced to reckon with the mutilation and near beheading of their fellow SEAL. Top: Capt. Our sense of whats right and whats wrong is warped. Neal was the Senior Mentor for the United States Marine Corps for five years and was a Senior Fellow for the National Defense University. Moore told his deputy, Szymanski, who was in Afghanistan, to sort things out. In 2011 Walker founded CityWorks(X) in Roanoke, now an annual multi-disciplinary idea exchange and festival conference focused on big ideas for better communities.He attended the University of St Andrews in Scotland, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Washington and Lee University School of Law. The men who make it through the grueling training represent roughly the top 10 percent of all SEALs. posted Feb 15, 2019 by Andrea (Stawski) Pack. That was not how the SEALs wanted the mission to develop. According to his own description, the first two rounds hit bin Ladens forehead. The Special Operations Forces Nutrition . Top right: Robert ONeill with his tattoo of two bloody feathers, representing his kills. It didnt make a difference. We dont place the same emphasis on diving or jumping like we used to. In exchange, Smethers, who never filed an official allegation or complaint, was sent back to the U.S. Smethers did not respond to requestsfor comment. The prominent mountain range often served as the last geographic refuge for retreating forces entering Pakistan. Top left: CIA paramilitary officer and former SEAL Team 6 member Richard Smethers. For many on the raid, including those who had been present in bin Ladens bedroom with ONeill, it was the first time theyd heard anyone in the command say the terrorist leader was standing, posing a threat of any kind. 2023 The SOFREP Media Group. It was really good therapy for everybody who was there.. After being shepherded through the nine-month training, he entered Red Squadron. They had detailed plans of the Abbottabad compound provided by the CIA and knew where they could expect to find bin Laden. Created in 1980 and based at the Dam. All of us were upset. Theformer SEAL Team 6 leader told me that for the units operators, the greatest punishment was being kicked out of the unit in front of their peers. The retired SEAL, who spent the better part of two decades at the command, said he never asked Hyder why he mutilated the corpse. It was given as an honor, one more step to strive for, another sign that youre doing a good job.. A fair amount of what is known about the units composition, training, and selection is based on information from the 80s and 90s that is very possibly outdated. Five retired Navy SEALS are running for Republican seats in the House of Representatives in a collective effort to get more veterans in Congress. In an interview, Hyder said the man had approached his position with his arms tucked into his armpits and did not heed warnings from other SEALs to stop. View Lynn Van Hooser's profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. He received a bachelor's degree with majors in history and French from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971, and a master's degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C. in 1973. He took Robertss death hard. McRaven, who was informed of the killings only after he knew Phillips was safe, was incensed. Moore, sitting in his office in Virginia Beach, pressed Vasely: What had he actually seen? JavaScript is disabled. During a late-night raid at a northern Kunar compound, Silver Squadron operators killed several captors but accidentally killed Norgrove when an inexperienced SEAL threw a fragment grenade at one of the captors. You ask me to go living with the pigs, but I cant go live with pigs and then not get dirty.. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. Virginia Military Institute Prior to that, Ambassador Litt served for 34 years as a career U.S. diplomat, specializing in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Im disappointed he didnt take a knee.. The operators were unhappy about the new restriction, arguing that call outs gave up the tactical advantage of surprise. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (1995-1998) and as Consul General in Dubai ten years prior. The SEALs believe that they can handle the discipline themselves, thats equal to or greater than what the criminal justice system would give to the person, said Susan Raser, a retired Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent who led the agencys criminal division but did not investigate this mission. Lieutenant General Gwen Bingham is a U. S. Army retired 3-star General and a native of Troy, Alabama. His superiors believed he had become unglued over the 2007 deployment. Tim Szymanski. Gary Van Hooser. Hes just beginning to suffer for what he did, said anotherSEAL Team 6 leader. SOCKOR is a functional component command of United States Forces Korea, tasked to plan and conduct Special Operations in the Korean theater of operations. xiii Mike Bottoms and Master Sgt. A retired noncommissioned officer said Howards encouragement and provision of Winkler hatchets was simply adding fuel to the fire. Important personal traits for SEALs include maturity, self assurance and self confidence. The intention was to permit women and children to get out of harms way before operators conducted their assault. To understand the violence, you have to begin at Roberts Ridge, said one former member of SEAL Team 6 who deployed several times to Afghanistan. ONeill, by contrast, was not considered as clever as his teammate, but he was a deadly sniper and had a successful tour as a team leader in Red Squadron. Beginning in 2005 and continuing through 2008, as U.S. Special Operations forces became more central to the American military strategy, the number and frequency of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan increased dramatically. Libutti, a native of New York and a graduate of The Citadel, has had a lifetime of distinguished military and private sector service roles, exemplifying the ideal qualities of a citizen-soldier. Bingham is the recipient of the 2019 White House Correspondents Be Fearless Award; the 2019 Joint Womens Leadership in Excellence Meritorious Service Award; the 2018 Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the 2018 Women in Defense Service to the Flag award and the 2014 Rock of the Year award. Recently, a SEAL was awarded the Bronze Star with Combat V and Purple Heart medals from the Secretary of the Navy. Slabinski told MacPherson that Wolverine had been really good payback., Just a phenomenal, phenomenal day. Created in 1980 and based at the Dam Neck Annex of Naval Air Station Oceana near Virginia Beach, the command prided itself on its culture of nonconformity with the larger military. When they reached the hilltop, the operators looked down in disbelief at women and children, along with the man all were dead or mortally wounded from the spray of gunfire from the Chinooks gunners, who had unloaded after the free fire zone had been declared. You dont whistleblow on the teams and when you win on the battlefield, you dont lose investigations.. Box 378 Red Hook, New York 12571 United States, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2004/03/14/the-hunt-heats-up.html, http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102133_2102330-2,00.html, http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_jsoc_mcraven_030408w/, http://www2.hurlburt.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123061677, http://www.socom.mil/News/Pages/SOCOMwelcomesnewcommander.aspx, http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB56AYSM1F.html, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/delta-force-gets-a-name-change/64310/, http://cms.sofrep.com/5447/differences-delta-and-seal-team-6/, http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/04/navy_sealrecruiting_training_070408w/, http://www.navyseals.com/navy-seals-killed-combat-afghanistan, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0RjK5LzGRE, http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/08/army-chinook-crash-highlights-rise-in-spec-ops-raids-082111w/, http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/practicing-with-the-pirates-these-navy-seals-were-ready-for-bin-laden-mission-20110505. He even has his own line of clothing. Derrick Van Orden is an American patriot, retired Navy SEAL, husband, father, grandfather, and Christian. One retired senior SEAL Team 6 leader was there who led the unit during the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. John B. The prevailing narrative about SEAL Team 6 in news coverage, bestselling books, and Hollywood movies is unambiguously heroic; it centers on the killing of Osama bin Laden and high-profile rescue missions. Im not condoning the behavior theres no justification to hacking a body but we didnt prepare them either. Its important that you put this stuff in context, the CIA officer said. The rules of engagement allowed the ground force commander to shoot anyone he viewed as a threat, regardless of whether they were armed at the time of the shooting. Earlier that evening, general officers from the Joint Special Operations Command had scrambled the SEALs after watching a Predator drone video feed of a man they suspected was bin Laden set off in a convoy of three or four vehicles in the Shah-i-Kot Valley, where al Qaeda forces had fortified themselves. If you do the math, that means for all the aspiring wannabe SEALs willing to roll the dice and sign an enlistment contract, just one in 150 will ever join the exclusive ranks of DEVGRU as an operator. from Tulane University, and is a graduate of The National War College. Theres no military purpose for it, a former Red Squadron operator told me. He previously served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Principal Director for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia Policy and as the Chief of Staff for the Department of Defense Transition Team. The reason SEAL Team 6 exists is to avoid bombs and collateral damage, said a retired SEAL Team 6 member who was on the mission. The unit conducted a captains mast on at least seven SEALs for revealing sensitive information during a series of promotional videos for the video game Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The reprimand ended the careers of two veteran SEAL Team 6 noncommissioned officers. It was just good therapy. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. Illustrations: Attila Futaki, Colorist: Greg Guilhaumond, Matthew Cole[emailprotected]theintercept.com@matthewacole, The SEALs believe that they can handle the discipline themselves, thats equal to or greater than what the criminal justice system would give to the person.. The truth about what happened in bin Ladens bedroom may never be fully known. Find your friends on Facebook. Sign Up. Audio from an unpublished interview with Britt Slabinksi conducted by Malcolm MacPherson, author of a 2005 book on the battle of Roberts Ridge. Both declined to comment. In the world of SEAL Team 6, where operators never face criminal charges despite allegations of war crimes, unjustified killings, and corruption the admirals mast was a serious rebuke. Iraq was a target rich environment, and Wyman allowed us to be more aggressive. According to several former SEAL Team 6 leaders, it was JSOC commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal who ordered the increased operational tempo and pushed SEAL Team 6, including Howard, to conduct more frequent raids to help wipe out the insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. A standout football player at Indian River High School and West Point, this decorated Army commander knows well the role that hard work and determination can play in overcoming lifes challenges. Read More . Six days after Objective Bull, the Pentagon announced at a press conference that an airstrike had killed 14 people,who a spokesperson said were somehow affiliated with al Qaeda. AKA: James Van Hooser, James C Van Hooser, James Chandler Van Hooser. In 2005-2006 he was the third-ranking officer at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, with the title of Political-Military Counselor, providing policy advice to the U.S. The units elite stature has insulated its members from the scrutiny and military justice that lesser units would have faced for the same actions. With Operation Neptune Spear came a rush of unwanted attention that continues to this day. xlviii Ambinder and Grady, When You See The Word National, in The Command. Captain Van Hooser then received orders to BUD/S training class 137. Within hours, news trucks and reporters fanned out through the seaside town looking for anything affiliated with Navy SEALs. In his interview with the Times, Slabinski asserted that it was he who had witnessed the operator slashing at the dead fighters throat, saying, It appeared he was mutilating a body. Slabinski portrayed himself as trying to police his men and said that he gave them a very stern speech. He claimed to the Times that he told his men, If any of you feel a need to do any retribution, you should call me. Slabinski says nothing in the Times story about Vasely ordering him to investigate the scene or the remark about a head on a platter. The morning after Objective Bull, Red Team gathered at Bagram Air Base. Oh my gosh. Several of Bissonnettes teammates later informed their superiors that he had lied about his actions. Following graduation from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, General Neal was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. After the SEALs tried blowing the buildings gated front door, someone inside fired several rounds out a window. Instead of helping search and secure the second floor, both headed to the third floor, hoping to get a chance for the historic kill. The battle of Roberts Ridge, as it came to be known, has been frequently described in books and press accounts. It was at this point that some critics in the military complained that SEAL Team 6 with their full beards and arms, legs, and torsos covered in tattoos looked like members of a biker gang. General Libutti's personal decorations include: The Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Distinguished Service Medal (first award), the Silver Star Medal; Defense Superior Service Medal with two bronze oak leaf clusters; Legion of Merit with gold star; Purple Heart with two gold stars; Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal; Republic of Korea Chonsu Medal: and the Combat Action Ribbon. After completing Ranger School, he continued to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and earned two master's degrees in diplomatic and economic history. The VMI Center for Leadership and Ethicsis pleased to announce Lieutenant General Frank Libutti, USMC (Ret.) ONeill has not been shy about the fact that he canoed bin Laden. The falsehoods, both significant and slight, demonstrate that even when conducting the most important missions, SEAL Team 6 was unable to rise above the culture of deceit, personal enrichment, and self-aggrandizement that has corrupted a fighting unit legendary for its discipline and code of honor. You are using an out of date browser. At least two of Bissonnettes teammates who were with him when al Kuwaiti was killed were angry about the deception taking credit for a teammates actions on a mission was unprecedented and dishonorable but did not contradict him in the presence of a military lawyer. Harry graduated from. According to one DEVGRU operator, At BUD/S its a question of survivalBut Green Team isnt just a matter of obeying orders and hanging on. Olson would earn a Silver Star for his actions that day.xv. Howards distribution of the hatchets worried several senior SEAL Team 6 members and some CIA paramilitary officers who worked with his squadron. A decision made by a DEVGRU operator in the field during the course of an operation may prove to have greater political implications than years of labor by his Congressman. While he was there, he confronted the Blue Squadron troop and the operator whod tried to behead the Taliban fighter.