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Everyone wants to know the name of the SEAL who shot Bin Ladin. People cannot believe that he is not being honored on every news channel. Others cannot imagine being that man and having to keep it a secret when you were the one to finally bring justice to the world’s worst terrorist.
Unfortunately, unless you have been one of these warriors, it will never make sense why there must be silence, and more importantly, why that is exactly what you as a SEAL would want.
The need for silence comes from two places: operational security and family safety.
Operational Security or OPSEC refers to the efforts that must be taken to ensure that the enemy does not gain any knowledge that can benefit them. The public may see this as one of the biggest military victories of recent history, but to the SEALs on this mission, it was just another effective day at work.
These warriors will return to their base to debrief the After Action Report (AAR), which will go over every detail of the operation, both good and bad. Each member (both senior and junior) will share their point of view of the events and offer criticisms of each other’s actions. All of these lessons will be collected and distributed to as many other SEALs as possible, so that all of us can benefit from the lessons learned to never make the same mistake again.
Then these warriors will go back to work to train for the next mission. The training is never ending. This training is what enables these warriors to perform the impossible. They will be itching to get back into the fight to continue to make a difference. In order to continue deploying and protecting this country, these good men must remain anonymous. If their identities were to be paraded about on television, then their operational careers would be over.
This ties into the next reason why identities of these men must remain a closely guarded secret. The enemies that we are fighting against are evil people that will go to any means necessary to hurt us. In our modern society of social media and public identities, it would not be hard to take a name and find the families of these warriors. These terrorists would not think twice about targeting a school or an elderly care facility to kill the family members of the warrior or warriors who finally brought Bin Ladin to justice.
But, the most important point to keep in mind is that this secrecy is exactly what these warriors want.
We are not like you. That is obvious by the fact that the majority of individuals never try to become a SEAL and of those few that try, 80% will not make it. If you go to BUD/s (Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL) training because you want outside recognition, you will not last long.
The only men who make it through training must be motivated from deep inside. It must be a calling; you must be a sheepdog through and through. All SEAL training accomplishes is to sharpen the teeth you already had.
SEALs pride themselves as being “Silent Professionals.” Unless you know what to look for, it is very difficult to pick out a Navy SEAL in the crowd.
We do not leave our loved ones for an average of 300 days a year for a mention in the paper.
We do not sacrifice our bodies and our souls for medals or commendations.
We do not suffer the loss of our friends and teammates for an appearance on television.
We do savor the respect given to us by our fellow teammates for our actions in combat. We do thirst for the feeling of excitement and accomplishment that comes from a successful mission.
But, most importantly every day we feel a hollowness deep within us that reminds us that we have still not done enough to protect our teammates, our families, and the country that we love.
This feeling is what drives us to remain anonymous and to throw ourselves back into the breach, ready to fight against evil in whatever forms it takes.
As always, thanks for reading.
Larry Yatch
