"Don't seek attention for your service" is the unspoken military rule. Somehow, Navy SEALs seem to be violating it quite often these days.
After former U.S. Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill decided to publicly come out and identify his involvement in the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound to The Washington Post earlier this week, U.S. special operations leaders and serving Navy SEALs are scrambling to contain the damage, with most of them displaying scorn against the former member of SEAL Team 6 for making such a controversial move.
"They're terribly frustrated," said Dick Couch, a Vietnam-era Navy SEAL, referring to special operations leaders. "They want to be very clear this is not who we are. It just makes us look like buffoons."
O'Neill's disclosure comes nearly two years after Matt Bissonnette, another former SEAL Team 6 member, published details about the group's experiences in his memoir, "No Easy Day," written under the pseudonym Mark Owen, according to USA Today.
Osama bin Laden "died afraid," O'Neill said, adding that he fired the fatal shot that killed the al-Qaeda chief in Abbottabad, Pakistan, more than three years ago. "He died afraid, and he knew we were there to kill him."
However, there have been rebuttals that another member of the elite SEAL Team 6 was responsible for delivering the final shots that killed bin Laden's reign of terror during a Naval special forces raid on his compound in May 2011.
But the credit doesn't matter to the 38-year-old, who claims he does not care if people believe him or not.
"The most important thing that I've learned in the last two years is to me it doesn't matter anymore if I am 'The Shooter.' The team got him," O'Neill, who had been serving as a SEAL for 15 years at the time of the bin Laden raid, said in an audio interview quoted by CNN.
As a result of all the publicity, leaders of the Naval Special Warfare Command are issuing a rare plea for Navy SEALs to remember the code they pledged to live by.
"We will not abide willful or selfish disregard for our core values in return for public notoriety and financial gain, which only diminishes otherwise honorable service, courage and sacrifice," said the letter signed by Rear Adm. Brian Losey and Force Master Chief Michael Magaraci on Oct. 31.
With the SEALs gaining popularity through the mediums of Hollywood films, video games and books, analysts and former Navy SEALs claim that some are being seduced by the celebrity status that has been conferred on them in recent years.
"Hollywood has produced a string of movies portraying SEALs in a heroic light, including 'Zero Dark Thirty,' which chronicled the bin Laden mission, and 'Captain Phillips,' which portrayed their role in killing pirates and rescuing a ship captain," according to USA Today.
Meanwhile, the Navy SEALs were encouraged to resist the urge of publicly identifying themselves since it could expose classified information, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.
"There is an expectation inside that community, a code, that they ascribe to that they will not seek recognition for what they do, they will not seek financial gain from what they do," Kirby said Friday.
"Nothing takes away our pride and esteem for the job that those individuals continue to do," he added. "But there's an obligation that comes with it, an obligation not to be candid about what they do."
