Navy Seals Disciplined For Revealing Secrets As Consultants On Video Game 204
Hugh Pickens writes "CBS reports that seven active duty members of SEAL Team Six, best known for killing Osama bin Laden, have been disciplined for revealing secrets working as paid consultants on a video game, Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game does not recreate the bin Laden raid, but it does portray realistic missions, such as an attack on a pirates' den in Somalia. Electronic Arts boasts that real commandos, both active duty and retired, help make its games as realistic as possible. EA says Medal of Honor Warfighter was 'written by actual U.S. Tier 1 Operators while deployed overseas,' and that it 'features a dotted line to real world events and provides players a view into globally recognized threats and situations letting them experience the action as it might have unfolded.' It is unclear what secrets members of SEAL Team Six gave away, but while serving as consultants for the game, they used classified material which had been given to them by the Navy and also violated the unwritten code that SEALs are silent warriors who shun the spotlight. 'We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as Sailors in the United States Navy,' says Deputy Commander of Naval Special Warfare, Rear Admiral Garry Bonelli. 'The non-judicial punishment decisions made today send a clear message throughout our Force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability.'"
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Military pay is _much_ better than it used to be. Retirement is still amazingly good (until the bean counters decide it should become some sort of 401K).
What drugs are you taking? I was discharged (honorably, mind you) recently and I was getting paid shit. Let me preemptively negate the mitigating arguements to justify the green weenie argument of the pay issue: ~ Free housing: I lived in on-base housing that were either condemned and then re-fitted to shove extra soldiers in, or barracks that when reviewed, the base was allocated several million dollars to build new barracks.There's a reason some of us preferred the field. ~ Free healthcare: Performed by people who are fresh out of school and aren't experienced enough to be jaded. Or performed by people who have the mentality that once they put in their eight hours, their day was over. Their day started with PT, one of the few things that movies get right by showing it before dawn. So, yes, they're out of the office by 2 in the afternoon. Oh yeah, unless there is seriously something out of the norm with you, here's some Advil. Walk it off. Knew a guy that seriously injured his spine. Was back at work about a month later. Almost forgot, he deployed 4 or 5 months later. ~ Free food: Bought at a cost ration of greatest weight per dollar, which translated into cheapest food medically allowed. Joke I heard was: Grade E Beef-substitute, suitable for Americans worst and finest, served to our military and death-row inmates. With the way the Army operates, I was lucky to get two meals a day from cooks. Breakfast usually consisted of coffee and cigarettes, a bagel if I was lucky. Lunch and dinner was at the dining facilities where everything was rationed out using grade school sized portions. I ate the best when I was in the field or on vacation. I knew guys that were in that had a wife and children that qualified for food stamps. ~ Free training, vocational/technical style: They teach the bare minimum and expect the units the service member to go to teach the rest. So yeah, it's awesome if you go into the combat arms jobs because they don't want to write any "Dear Mr. & Mrs. Snuffy" letters. Last I check, the only people hiring these guys are the mafia and possibly law enforcement. The vo-tech jobs are slightly different. They promote and train the people who kiss ass, suck dick, stroke the shaft, gurgle the gravy and ask for seconds. (Looking back at my previous point, at least they were getting additional protein.) Everyone else got ignored unless the spotlight was on the person in charge.
It's a privilege to serve and one should be more concerned about things other than money --- plenty of time for that later (you've more than half your life ahead of you if you retire at age 38).
It's a privilege? The first two ideas which came to mind for that statement are either: A) you're former military who got so high up that you assume everyone has catered food, weekly manicures after golf, and heard that soldiers these days don't know how to dig a trench; or B) you're a civilian and thought Stripes was an actual account of all things military. Let me guess, you'll let us all have tea and crumpets for a mid afternoon snack. And if we retire by age 38, huh? How about if we make to age 38? That's assuming we all enter at age 18. (We don't. One is allowed in the military well into their 30's. Knew those guys to.) And on the topic of retiring, how about the guys who get medically retired because the Advil and water didn't heal running over an bomb? Yeah, it's a real privilege to be a poor, ahem, well payed member of the military. Please keep paying your taxes so elected officials can decide where to send us minions.