Shawn(runt) and Jocko are pretty decent people from the little bit of time around them. I put Shawn through a course and worked for Jocko in Iraq for three months in Ramadi. I was part of a task force and he needed more shooters so me and 2 other guys drove up to support him. He was very aware of everything and everyone around him. Nobody went outside the wire without your body armor as long as he was in command. Constantly yelling, "wear your armor". I imagine he saved quite a few lives. I know he saved mine because I was not a fan of side and back plates and only wore my helmet when I wore NODs. In fact, I couldn't wear my side plate when working with the Army or JTAC. We had to wear a SINGERS radio which went on your right side, high. The more you used it, the hotter it would get. Every strike resulted in one degree of burn on your side. I was a quick study and figured out I needed to stay on the long gun than carry that radio. I actually used to put gauze pads soaked in silvadene on my side before putting on that radio.
Some guys on Red squadron were given Winkler Tomahawks by Capt Howard. The morons took them on ONE deployment because we had some very poor leadership at the time. You have to understand, officers don't go through selection or green team. They just do their tour of 2 years and go away. Some don't make it 2 years. Which is why McRaven had an axe to grind with DEVGRU, he was booted. The operators at Dam Neck are almost entirely enlisted. The only exceptions are the ones who convert to officer or CWO and they are usually put in another capacity such as running green team, training or ops. So yeah, some guys had tomahawks for a partial tour. When the desecration thing became a thing, it was stopped. Immediately. To be honest, it was too late by then. Our investigation had found out about a lot of issues that had been going on and permitted by senior leadership. After that tour, a large chunk of SEAL leadership had a week long conference where some new ground rules were put in place and a lot of senior enlisted and officer leadership were sent home or back to the Teams.
There is no professional reason to carry a tomahawk and the the unintended consequences of permitting guys to carry them is that they will try to use them or utilize them to desecrate bodies. We are not in that business whatsoever. It doesn't align with the consummate professionalism that we are held to. I will tell you for a fact, there are very, very few instances justifying you to pull your knife to take a life. We are issued and train to be experts with our long arms and assault rifles. If you need to pull your pistol, you have screwed up along with 2 or 3 members of your group. You have to understand how hard it can be just to engage a guy because everyone is so fast and smooth, they will beat you to your shot. If you go dry, there are at minimum 2 guys deep already on target ready to take that shot. During an assault, you simply don't have time or the need to pull your sidearm. By this point in your career, you can dump and load in about 2 seconds or less. We used to drill to pull your pistol when you assault weapon went dry during a double tap but you get to a point where the sidearm is just an emergency weapon. Yes there are guys who strive to get a knife kill and they will usually get one by putting themselves in danger or their Team. Or sadly, finishing a wounded combatant. Those people have something wrong in their DNA and are for the most part, weeded out. Their desire to kill a guy with their knife does not out weigh my right to life.
Navy SEALs are supposed to be professional special operators. There should never be any psychotic desire to spill blood or desecrate bodies. We do what we are trained to do without hesitation and ferocity but never blood thirsty. Even though the enemy just tried to hack off my best friends head on the top of some schitty mountain. Everyone should have tightened up and let their hatred out of the enemy on the battlefield and respected them once they were dead. If you are the type of person who let their emotions control their actions, you are in the wrong job. Unfortunately, senior leadership at that command permitted a bunch of MEN regress into immaturity. That particular squadron had many failings. They read a fictional book and took it as fact. Their squadron name was the Redmen, not the Indians as some fat turd here referenced them. The idiots went and got Apache Indian tattoos and started believing they were fawking Indians....and their leadership permitted it. No, encouraged it or turned a blind eye. Well, that BS reached the wrong ears, an admiral they tossed out of their group years prior and it was brought to an end. No one in the Navy is not and have not carried a tomahawk into battle except for 40 some days into a deployment. The tomahawks should have been meant to be a symbol or their mascot and namesake. Instead, a POS Captain was seeking inclusion into a group he knew he could never be in and brought a schitstorm into Naval Special Warfare. A lot of careers were lost and some of the offenders are now making tons of money telling lies and being giant POS.
I made my point. If anyone is wondering, I was an 18Delta, (maybe equivalent to a paramedic but a bit more), Sniper, and occasional assaulter. I tried to go dog handler but because of GWOT, I kept having to deploy or other schools. I assisted in developing the Navy SARC, Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman, and still train the guys in the pipeline. However, I do very little in the medical side and work the shooting and electronic side getting them ready for @#$%#^ which I believe is still a classified capability. I personally do not really enjoy the medical side anymore but instruct certain aspects of it. I am proud to say that when these guys finish their training, they can perform minor surgeries in the field, put a few hot ones in an enemies ass, shoot 1k yards minimum, free fall, dive with the best and run their asses off all day long. The military is changing. The Marines are changing. Warfare is changing. Mark my words, the Marines are going to break down to platoons size and deploy with multiple small units that are spread out. Special Forces in general will be the norm of the future. You got a motivated kid that wants to serve at least 10 years? Send them to SARC school. We will make them a better human being in this world with very impressive capabilities.
Last edited by KSMITH; 04/19/23.
