Navy SEALs "looking hard" at death investigations and drug allegations
The head of the U.S. Navy SEALs reportedly said that the elite military force was reviewing how it operates amid allegations of drug abuse within the ranks and as some SEALs face criminal charges in death investigations. Rear Adm. Collin Green, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, made the comments at a convention in San Diego Wednesday, according to the Navy Times.
"We are looking hard, as a learning organization, to self-assess, to see if we are assessing and selecting the right people, and are we holding them accountable," Green said, according to the newspaper. He added that the 90-day review would examine "what we're doing in the schoolhouse, what we're not doing, what we're doing relative to leader development and hard ethical decisions, combat ethics, and seeing if we're addressing that."
One SEAL, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, is awaiting trial for allegedly killing a wounded teenage fighter for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and opening fire at civilians in Iraq. Two other SEALs have been charged in the death of Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Green Beret, in the African country of Mali.
Those deaths happened in 2017. That same year, several SEALs told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin about drug abuse in the ranks.
"People that we know of, that we hear about have tested positive for cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana, ecstasy," one SEAL, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Martin. "That's a problem."
In December 2016, it led to the SEALs ordering a safety stand-down, which halted all training, Martin reported. All SEALs had to undergo urine tests during the stand-down.
Naval Special Warfare spokeswoman Cmdr. Tamara Lawrence told the Times that the review's findings would be reported in March to Army Gen. Raymond Thomas III, who leads Special Operations Command. On Wednesday, Green noted the demands SEALs have been facing since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, saying, "We've been at war for 17 years."
