By: Ann Barnhardt
Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.
Ann Barnhardt
I have waited patiently all day for one of the websites owned, manned and run by . . . JOURNALISTS to pick this up, but I have yet to see a single word. When I read this late last night I was SHAKING with fury. SURELY one of the sites dedicated to JOURNALISM would be all over this come morning. Nope. Not a word. Unbelievable.
From the New York Times (aka the Litter Box Liner of Record), page A6 in the print edition:
“Admiral Defends Use of Elite Unit in Calamitous Raid”
“Since the crash, which resulted in the greatest loss of American life on a single day in the Afghan war, some analysts have questioned why an elite Navy Seals strike team was assigned as mere backup for an Army Ranger raid on an insurgent cell, and why so many Special Operations personnel were aboard a single helicopter. Admiral McRaven dismissed assertions that the most highly trained Navy and Army commando teams should be reserved solely for the most high-profile missions; he said they were regularly assigned to support commanders of units in a local area of combat if that contributed to the overall mission.
“We have to be fungible as a force,” Admiral McRaven said. “And if we are not fungible as a force, then we are not of value. It is not unusual at all for SEALs or Rangers or Army Special Operations forces to be part of a quick-reaction force, as in this case.”
Did you get that? SPECOPS have to be . . . fungible. This McRaven fool is the COMMANDER of American Special Operations forces. I guess he missed the subtle meaning behind the word “SPECIAL” in “SPECIAL Forces”. Dear God.
See, this is what these slithering degenerate cowards do. They throw out a six dollar word that they know only one tenth of one percent of the people know the meaning of, everyone nods in agreement because they don’t know what the word “fungible” means, and then slick as you like just sweep the entire thing under the rug. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if McRaven himself didn’t know what the word “fungible” meant. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if McRaven thought it had to do with mushrooms.
Here is what “fungible” means.
Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution, such as crude oil, wheat, precious metals or currencies. For example, if someone lends another person a $10 bill, it does not matter if they are given back the same $10 bill or a different one, since currency is fungible.
Are you shaking with fury yet? The commander of U.S. SPECOPS wants to make the special operators he commands LESS SPECIAL. He visualizes a military in which a DEVGRU Navy SEAL could be substituted with a reserve guardsman or vice-versa – because remember, fungibility is all about MUTUAL substitution.
Really Admiral? Really? The 15 DEVGRU SEALs that were killed on that Chinook were literally some of the most valuable tactical human military assets THAT HAVE EVER EXISTED IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. These DEVGRU men aren’t just SEALs, they are the absolute elite of the elite. Most of them are in their early to mid 30s, and have YEARS of combat experience in the other SEAL Teams before being hand-picked to join DEVGRU. Let’s run it down:
SEAL training is the toughest in the world. The first step for a man who volunteers to enter SEAL training is 4-12 weeks of prep courses followed by 3 weeks of “indoctrination”. Then comes the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) course. By the end of this 25-week course the wash-out rate is over 90 percent. There have been BUD/S courses in which every man washed out. For the very, very few who make it through BUD/S, next comes the 26-week SEAL Qualification Training (SQT). Beyond that, many SEALS also go through the 26-week Special Operations Combat Medic course. After all of that, the SEALs then go through 18 MONTHS of predeployment training. It takes a minimum of 30 months to fully train a SEAL for his first deployment.
Oh, but we’re just getting started. After spending YEARS on the ground in combat, gaining priceless experience on top of their already best-in-the-world training, a very, very select few SEALs are tapped to join DEVGRU (United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group). That is why most DEVGRU guys are over 30. They are highly experienced, stand-out SEALS. How much of a complete bad@$$ do you have to be to stand out . . . in a group of SEALs?
DEVGRU is the best of the best of the best. But even DEVGRU is split into four assault squadrons: Red, Blue, Silver and Gold. The Gold Squadron is the “premier” squadron, in other words, the best of the best of the best of the best of the best. Okay, now try to get your head around how special the men are who stand out not just among other Navy SEALs, but beyond that stand out amongst DEVGRU SEALs. Gold Squadron DEVGRU SEALs make Superman feel insecure.
Guess who was on that Chinook. An entire 15-man troop from Gold Squadron DEVGRU. I kid you not. An entire troop of the most valuable human tactical and combat assets in not just the United States Military, but all militaries across all of the centuries of human civilization and warfare – packed into one National Guard transport helo in a massive, massive breach of dispersion protocol, accompanied by 10 (I think) more SEALs (further compounding the breach of dispersion protocol), the Chinook crew, and SEVEN Afghanis who stood a non-trivial risk of being spies/turncoats/suicide bombers.
Citation (This stuff isn’t hard to find, Journalists. There are even further footnotes at the bottom of the page.):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Special_Warfare_Development_Group
And this McRaven idiot has the unmitigated gall to come out and spew some line of crap about FUNGIBILITY? We need to treat Gold Squadron DEVGRU SEALs like interchangeable commodity units?
Again, every single human being is infinitely precious, but when we are talking about war, we have to be able to parse the difference in TACTICAL value between different skillsets among our men. This is in no way immoral. From a TACTICAL COMBAT PERSPECTIVE, the notion of applied fungibility is utter and complete lunacy. It is certifiably insane. It is mission-suicidal and borders on being treasonous. Do you hear me, McRaven? Mission-suicidal and borderline treasonous.
“I’m not sure I know how it ends,” [McRaven] said. “This may be the ‘new normal,’ in terms of this threat that we will have to live with for a long time.”
Let me tell you “how it ends”, Admiral Pantspisser. It ends in swift, total, complete and unconditional victory. Either get your head around that or resign. We The People are sick and tired of politicking, imbecilic, touchy-feely asses like you using the treasure of this nation as cannon fodder to justify your self-serving politically correct agenda and whose dead bodies you step on to clamber your way up the payscale/pension ladder. Admiral McRaven, you have proven yourself wholly unqualified for your position at best, and a disgrace to the United States Navy and a water-carrying oath-breaker at worst. Men like you make me sick, and make me weep for my country and for the men under your command, the soles of whose boots you are not fit to lick. Hope you enjoy that pension, Billy, because you had to sell out your country and your brothers to get it.
A ridiculous argument from an individual who has no idea what she is talking about. Reading her article had me “shaking with fury” alright, AT HER. I am an active SEAL, and if a unit of Rangers or even National Guardsmen needed QRF I’d be going, as would all my brothers. As far as this “dispersion protocol” goes, we ride in what we’ve got. I’ve been packed into plenty of helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. What, does she think helicopters grow on trees? Her vicious personal attacks against ADM McRaven over tactics and policies she knows nothing about are shameful in the extreme and reveal her as a rabid, idiotic asshole. Ann Barnhardt owes the Admiral a public apology.
As I read Ms. Barnhardt’s rant regarding Admiral McRaven’s ‘military-speak’ in using the word fungible to refer to the Navy SEAL Team 6 group that was tragically killed in action, I was real curious what a Navy SEAL member would say about it all. Not knowing Admiral McRaven but knowing some former SEAL team members, I was aware that it takes a pretty special person to become a SEAL team member in the first place, to say nothing of rising to the rank of Admiral in charge of that group. Because of what I’ve heard from my former SEAL team friends, I figured the good admiral was most likely heartbroken about the loss of any single member of his team. Therefore, to lose 36 men in one operation probably must feel like one big slice through the heart for him. Anyway, I figure Admiral McRaven, given he is a SEAL team member & has risen through the ranks to become the leader, has in all likelihood put himself at risk of losing life and limb in the service of his country and people like Ms. Barnhardt (& me for that matter) should just be honored to stand in his shadow. Anyway, I appreciated the responses above from the SEAL team members. As I read the responses, it appears that Ms. Barnhardt certainly earned the term she so cavalierly threw at the distinguished Admiral McRaven. I hope she’ll rethink her rant and replace it with a note of apology and a note of thanks to the members of the SEALs and to Admiral McRaven, true heroes, true patriots and great Americans.
I’m a retired SEAL Chief with 24 years in the teams, I had Adm McRaven as an XO and as the man in charge at Naval Special Warfare Group 1 and he was and still is one of the finest officers I ever worked with! I don’t know who you are or what your back round is but we don’t need you speaking for us!! You would not know what we do or how we do it, so shut your pie hole JACK ASS!!
Ms. Barnhardt,
Id on’t know your backgraound and don”t care, as for myself I am a retired Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer with 20 years of service 16 as a SEAL. I don’t know what your problem is but you have know idea of what you speak. I’ve known Adm McRaven for 30 years and can tell you he is an honorable man, he doesn’t have to explain himself to you or anyone else for that matter. Before you start vilifying someone you need to know what you are talking about which you obviously don’t. With the number of operations going on on a daily basis if you are back at camp and a QRF is needed you will be the QRF since there is no one else. And for your edification the boys who went more than likely didn’t have to told to go they just went because they were needed.
So get your panties out of your butt and don’t speak of what you know nothing about.
OBL was already dead years ago Politicaljules…..just saying when some facts are incorrect to start with further conclusions crumble under their own weight.
I have a navy veteran hubby and a son who dreams of being a future navy seal. I asked him about this and he thinks the outrage is misplaced. The assumption of the meaning of the word, “fungible” is taken out of sense. This is the way the Navy speaks about deciding which troops work where and he means that there will be no security break because these elite lost their lives. Navy Seals of equal rank and ability will assume the duties of those lives loss.
Fungible- Able to be substituted for something of equal value or utility; interchangeable.
Admiral McRaven is a fine leader and was the head of the team that killed Osama Bin Laden. Which more than explains why the NYT is spinning this story and trying to take him down.