Special operations forces reflect on lessons of terror fight
The Pentagon’s command for elite special operations forces is assessing how repeated deployments to the Middle East during the war on terror have impacted the forces' core values.
The Pentagon’s command for elite special operations forces is examining how repeated deployments to the Middle East during the war on terror have impacted the forces' core values and how to preserve the lessons of the nearly 18-year fight after completing an initial review. The evaluation followed a spate of disciplinary incidents.
The US Special Operations Command “is undertaking an assessment of the cumulative effects of over seventeen years of continuous combat,” the elite command wrote to Congress in February. The command said the effort includes “increased support on organizational culture and values.”
The command’s ongoing study comes after Gen. Raymond "Tony" Thomas, who retired in the spring, initiated a 90-day review of “core values” in the command in his final months on the job in the wake of a spate of disciplinary infractions linked to special operations forces. Lt. Phil Chitty, a Special Operations Command spokesman, told Al-Monitor that the findings of the review will not be made public and that while the command is doing a number of ongoing assessments to assess the impacts of the war on terror, “there is not an overarching study.”
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill scrutinized two incidents in particular, when US Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar, a Green Beret, died at the hands of Navy SEALs in Mali in 2017 and when Eddie Gallagher, also a SEAL, was charged in the slaying of a wounded Islamic State prisoner of war. A Navy court-martial jury acquitted Gallagher of the murder charge earlier this month.
