Gen. Stanley McChrystal explains what most people get wrong about Navy SEALs
Source: Business Insider
RICHARD FELONI
Most people think of Navy SEALs as superheroes who work together like a real-life Avengers team.
The SEALs are undeniably remarkable, but for a different reason, says retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his book “Team of Teams,” co-written with Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell. McChrystal led the US war in Afghanistan before stepping down in 2010.
“Americans enjoy the exciting, cinematic vision of a squad of muscle-bound Goliath boasting Olympian speed, strength, and precision; a group whose collective success is the inevitable consequence of the individual strengths of its members and the masterful planning of a visionary commander,” McChrystal writes, before adding that this is the wrong lens to view them in.
What makes Navy SEALs remarkable, he says, and what their grueling training is meant to ingrain in them, is their intense, selfless teamwork that allows them to process any challenge with near telepathy.
He uses the example of when SEALs rescued captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009, as dramatized in the 2013 film “Captain Phillips.”
To the public, McChrystal writes, that three SEAL snipers picked off three pirates holding Phillips hostage at night and at sea from a distance of 75 yards is what was truly impressive; the thing is, those shots within the scope of military history may have been difficult but were not “particularly dazzling.” What was worthy of attention, he says, was that each of the snipers fired simultaneously at their targets, each recognizing the exact moment when they had their shot.
“Such oneness is not inevitable, nor is it a fortunate coincidence,” McChrystal writes. “The SEALs forge it methodically and deliberately.”
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