Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire SEAL Team 8 Commander dies

As commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, he had several 16-man platoons, probably more than 100 SEALs, reporting to him. He had advanced out of patrol missions years ago, but he was undoubtedly still an impressive warrior.

Rest in peace, soldier.

If he is the Commanding Officer of the Team (he was) . Of course it is.

That looks dangerous AF. Not as much the actual descent, but standing in an open door setting up for it.

Friend who served with him said he was one of the good guys. He was just too old to be doing that job. Friend did that job and is now 100% disabled thinks the navy should kick all the seals out of the teams at about age 30ish. You don’t realize that you are slowing down and you don’t heal as well. Forty year olds have no business fast roping or doing five or six training jumps in an afternoon.

That video is the super tame beginners version. What they really do is get wrapped up on the rope hanging out both sides of the helicopter and start down while the helo is coming in. You’re swinging and often pulling a couple G’s as you slide down the rope with a full load out !

So kick them out at "30ish" (whatever the fugg that means), meaning a major combatant component of the USN will be run by at best by 0-4s? That and his age had nothing to do why he died.

I’m talking about kicking them out of the actual fighting and training to fight. Not out of leadership roles. 43 year old CO has no business out fast roping with the young guns. There is no reason for him to be practicing for a role he should never be called upon to do. Junior officers should be leading teams in the field and senior officers directing teams from the rear. By the time you’re in your mid thirties you are getting too old to be doing the job. Cutoff needs to be 32-34 rang. That’s just the opinion of my friend and some of his fellow retired special operations people. My friend was EOD assigned to seal teams for 10 years.

I have 0 qualifications to establish any credibility, but experience is
more valuable than training.

Training, is just an attempt to establish synthetic experience.


Given the actual deployment time, seeing things that establish
action experience, a guy leaving at 30 has what, 6 or 8 years as
a SEAL. How much action experience?

A guy at 40 will be at 16 or 18 years.
That's huge. And is going to cover a much wider knowledge base.
More things, more ways, more environments.

If your oldest guy was 30.
That's gonna make your pool pretty shallow.

I don’t know what the answers are but the job gets really hard for guys much over 30. In the field they’re all subject to the same physical abuse. Your mind is better than ever but your body isn’t. I’m just passing along the discussion my friend is having with other special operations guys. They all say they couldn’t see it while they were doing the job but now retired and looking back they see it. They’re all getting spinal fusions , knees and hips replaced in their late thirties and forties. My friend is waiting in agony for six neck fusions and three lower back fusions. VA is criminal in their neglect. After that he’s needs a hip replacement. He’s late thirties. Everyone he served with has some level of disability and one team he served with more than half have committed suicide after getting out. You take pain pills to keep going and get hooked on them. After the service they have no or broken families , constant pain , and drug addiction.

We'll agree to disagree

The SEAL community is very unforgiving. CO's are still expected to keep their qualifications up to date, train and deploy with his platoons or detachments.They are still in an "operational" billet and therefore still fully qualified Special Operators. There is a lot of extra pay that goes with the job, Jump pay, dive pay etc... if you want the pay, you stay current. So yes, he was operating in his wheelhouse by training with his troops.

Fast roping has been the cause for many a Frogman to go find another job. The name of the game is to unass that platform and get the hell out the way of the next guy coming down unless you want to carry him into a shooting match I have seen injuries from broken legs, blown out knees, broken ankles and broken backs from fast roping incidents. Most of the training is roping onto the steel deck of a Navy ship which doesn't offer much resiliency when you go "thud".

As for his age, pretty normal for a CO in the Teams. There are many older guys still operating. As long anyone can maintain their quals, they will be operational. Cycling these kind of people out after 30 is ridiculous. Their experience and leadership make them an invaluable asset to the community. There is no Navy Seal book, every training evolution is fluid and constantly changing. Tactics are constantly in flux. Tactics must adapt to stay ahead of the enemy. If you tried to write a book, it would have to change before you finished it.

Lastly, don't compare the age of 43 to anyone you know or met. It doesn't compute. The guys today are very unique as in their body is their temple. They are very selective about what they put in their body (aside from alcohol) and how they treat their body. Last I checked, there are 43 of them refusing the vaccine because they would rather not risk Myocarditis.

Sorrow, prayers, and condolences for the family.

RIP, Warrior. Thanks for your service - you gave it all.

Call me crazy but when I find someone's experience and leadership invaluable, I don't have them jump out of my helicopter.

That's why I mentioned MLB players in an earlier post. All a DH has to do is hit a baseball and run a short distance, but even then only a tiny fraction of MLB players play into their 40s, and that points to diminished reaction times. Even great, highly trained athletes can't completely defy the effects of aging.

I understand the ethos of the Team commanding officer being a fully qualified, combat-ready SEAL, but as a result of this incident the Navy is going to take a close look at the risks they're willing for their senior officers to take. Maintaining diver and parachute quals is one thing, and something I would expect a 40-something-year-old officer to be able to do without undue risk, but some of the other training activities are another matter entirely. By the time an O-5 is commanding one of the Navy's eight SEAL teams, he's demonstrated his skills in combat - he doesn't have to take the same risks in training that those headed into combat do. In what scenario is an O-5 going to fast-rope to get somewhere?

Any kind of realistic training is going to have some danger involved. You can mitigate the risk, but you can never remove it completely. Like KSMITH I've seen a ton of different injuries from training and heard of a bunch more. It sucks but it's going to continue to happen.

I broke a couple of vertebrae on a jump, a former team sergeant had pins in his ankle from a fast roping accident, a teammate busted the hell out of his ankle during ski training, a captain got bounced off the side of the aircraft when his static line got hung up and broke his arm, another guy lost an eye during force on force with sim rounds and those are just a few I can remember.

Not always 100% safe to stay on board either.

http://arlingtoncemetery.net/jtkeneally.htm

God bless those willing to face the dangers so others don't have to.
I look back daily at what little I did, and survived, and feel the deep loss of guys I knew who did not.

Ok, you are Crazy and have no idea what you are speaking on or about. Brian was a stud and doing exactly what he wanted to be doing and what he was supposed to be doing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Training kills people from time to time. We drown, burn in, get shot, get blown up, rollovers, crash in various platforms and some even trip while running with scissors. Some risks just cannot be mitigated while conducting actual training.

As far as him being a leader and forbidden from operating....A Commanding Officer is a leader, you lead from the front, you lead by example. Maybe they do it different where you hangout.

A woman at work had a brother who was a Navy SEAL Officer, he was in 11 years before he was medicaled out. Both shoulders needed replaced, I believe from a night jump where he landed on rocks or rip rap!