US Boots on the ground in Syria...

[Whiskeyjack]

Full disclosure here: one of my undergrad roommates from ND works for DEVGRU, so I have some very reliable sources for my information.

 

[kmoose]

That's DEVGRU as well.

No. It's not. The Maersk Alabama mission was not to recapture the ship; it was a hostage rescue mission. The Seals did not retake a ship; they rescued a hostage (Maersk Captain Phillips) from 4 armed pirates on a life boat.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

It's not a matter of Tier 1 vs Tier 2. It depends on the mission. You would not Seal Team VI to covertly retrieve an oil tanker from off the coast of Iran, when Seal Team II specializes in that very task. In the same manner, you would not send Seal Team II into Iraq to help the Kurds rescue hostages from ISIS. Seal Team VI is specially trained in hostage rescue.

Whatever, moose. I have a very close friend who credibly says otherwise. If you knew any SEALs currently serving, I'm sure they'd tell you that DEVGRU is on another level. But we're straying into military fanboy douche baggery here, so let's just drop it.

 

[kmoose]

Whatever, moose. I have a very close friend who credibly says otherwise. If you knew any SEALs currently serving, I'm sure they'd tell you that DEVGRU is on another level. But we're straying into military fanboy douche baggery here, so let's just drop it.

I've served, whiskey.............
And I do have 2 friends who are both SWCC, not Seal, but they could not be any more dialed into the SpecWar community.

So take your "military fanboy douche baggery" crap, and shove it right back up your.....

 

[WaveDomer]

Yup. It's a fascinating conundrum for the GOP presidential candidates. The intellectually deficient wing of the Republican base (which I'm learning is most of it) love to bomb, invade, meddle, and kill in the name of 'Merica, but they also instinctively hate everything Obama does.

There is definitely an intellectually deficient wing of the GOP but the Dems are also intellectually deficient in ways. They just play it differently. They couch it as intellectual. Like Obama mocking Romney about 1980 foreign policy. Pretty snarky and intellectually deficient, IMHO. The problem is both sides basically put on a show for their base and we all lose.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

If you mean that there is a difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 SO units, then you are right. If you mean that we would automatically send a Tier 1 unit to any issue, anywhere on the globe, simply because they are Tier 1, then it is not correct. If that was the case, they would just train ALL of the units to Tier 1 standards.

No one made that argument, moose. And no one disagreed with you that different units develop specialties.

I've served, whiskey.............
And I do have 2 friends who are both SWCC, not Seal, but they could not be any more dialed into the SpecWar community.

So take your "military fanboy douche baggery" crap, and shove it right back up your.....

I'm sorry for your loss. He wasn't UDT or anything, but my great Uncle, a WWII Navy Radioman, just passed a week ago. Always said to see those who are serving/have served pass on.

What was unnecessary, though, was Whiskey's thinly veiled accusation of me being a military fanboy douche bag.

You'll note that I included myself in that statement: "[W]e're straying into..." This sort of argument over lingo, military org, and which units are more "elite" than others becomes tedious for the uninitiated to read very quickly. That's why I suggested we drop it. Seems like we don't disagree on much after all.

 

[kmoose]

No one made that argument, moose. And no one disagreed with you that different units develop specialties.

I must have really misunderstood something, then, because I said:

That shows a pretty big ignorance of how Spec Ops is configured. Different Seal Teams specialize in different circumstances. If you are looking to infiltrate a building and rescue a hostage or take a prisoner, then you would utilize Seal Team 6. If you are looking to recapture a ship taken over by pirates, you would use a different Team. If you want to blow up a ship at sea without anyone seeing you? Yet another Team. You want to land on a beach and clear obstacles for an amphibious landing? Yet another Team. But they all have one or two things in common: they operate with a minimum number of personnel, and the average person will never know it was them unless someone wants them to know.

meaning simply that the team sent in would be more dependent on what the mission was, than how secretive it was supposed to be.

and you responded with:

JSOC org chart:

Delta and DEVGRU are both directly under JSOC. All other SEAL teams are under Naval Special Warfare. You're wrong, moose.

Since the point I was making was not that all Spec Ops groups were the same or even of equal ability, I naturally took this to mean that you were challenging my assertion that the mission was more likely to dictate which team might be sent than the need for secrecy.

If that was not the case, then I apologize, but I think you can probably understand how it could be taken the way I took it?

 

[Fbolt]

I know this, as a SOC cook, the scrambled eggs I prepared for those behind the curtain typically had chives and finely chopped japalpenos. Crazy MoFo's, just crazy!