I always inevitably get asked by my friends in the business community why the SEALs and SOF community are so Kardashian-like in their gossip.
If you ever want a front-row seat to a testosterone-fueled soap opera with more backstabbing than a Game of Thrones season finale, just hang around the Navy SEAL community long enough, especially on social media. The Formula 1 grid is no stranger to this for many of the same reasons.
Forget the “quiet professionals” myth. The reality? The loudest guys in the room are usually the most insecure, the most bitter, or the most unhappy.
SEALs (and SOF) love to eat their own, and the internet has only made the bloodsport more vicious.
Let’s get real—most of the guys running their mouths on the outside were either quietly booted from the Teams for failing a piss test, couldn’t hack it performance-wise, have a competing product in the market (or they are competing for audience or book sales), or have been festering in their own resentment for years because they never built anything for themselves after the Trident came off.
SEAL teams are filled with hyper-alpha personalities, and when you take that mix of ultra-competitive, aggressive guys and remove the common enemy (war), the fangs come out—usually aimed at each other, unfortunately.
Most of it’s professional jealousy, plain and simple. In the same way F1 racers in Drive to Survive secretly hate each other while pretending to be friends on the grid, SEALs—especially post-service—can’t stand to see someone else win.
Watch enough episodes of that show, and you’ll see the same dynamic: drivers shit-talking each other.
I always inevitably get asked by my friends in the business community why the SEALs and SOF community are so Kardashian-like in their gossip.
If you ever want a front-row seat to a testosterone-fueled soap opera with more backstabbing than a Game of Thrones season finale, just hang around the Navy SEAL community long enough, especially on social media. The Formula 1 grid is no stranger to this for many of the same reasons.
Forget the “quiet professionals” myth. The reality? The loudest guys in the room are usually the most insecure, the most bitter, or the most unhappy.
SEALs (and SOF) love to eat their own, and the internet has only made the bloodsport more vicious.
Let’s get real—most of the guys running their mouths on the outside were either quietly booted from the Teams for failing a piss test, couldn’t hack it performance-wise, have a competing product in the market (or they are competing for audience or book sales), or have been festering in their own resentment for years because they never built anything for themselves after the Trident came off.
SEAL teams are filled with hyper-alpha personalities, and when you take that mix of ultra-competitive, aggressive guys and remove the common enemy (war), the fangs come out—usually aimed at each other, unfortunately.
Most of it’s professional jealousy, plain and simple. In the same way F1 racers in Drive to Survive secretly hate each other while pretending to be friends on the grid, SEALs—especially post-service—can’t stand to see someone else win.
Watch enough episodes of that show, and you’ll see the same dynamic: drivers shit-talking each other.
SEALs and SOF, in general, are just as bad. Just look at how they tried to take down Tim Kennedy recently.
“He’s not really that good,” “Yeah, he was in combat but!” or “He didn’t shoot UBL!” or “But he only did a few combat deployments, I did more!”
The guys who built careers, started businesses, wrote books, or did anything worth a something? They’re the ones getting trashed. Why? Because success, especially in the public eye, makes losers uncomfortable.
The sad thing is that it takes the shine off the SOF community, and it is quite embarrassing for me to have other professionals keep asking me why this is so. In the same way a rising tide lifts all ships, the falling tide will drag us all down further.
How does it get fixed?
The only way this changes is if the SEAL and SOF community build legitimate alumni organizations—ones that can both police their own and professionally support those who want to move forward instead of dragging others down.
The Wild West of online SOF and SEAL gossip forums, social media bitch-fests, and public trashing will continue until there’s a real internal structure to stop it. Otherwise, it’s just going to be the same old story: a bunch of grown men playing “who’s the real SEAL!” while their own lives quietly fall apart and they embarrass themselves.
My friend and actor Mark Harmon from NCIS (his dad was a Heisman winner for Michigan, and a fighter pilot in WWII) once very wisely told me, “Brandon, no person who’s happy with their life goes out of the way to trash talk another person.”
In the meantime, me and the guys I respect will keep doing what we do—building, and winning—while the broke and bitter keep yapping from the cheap seats.
COMMENTS
There are
You must become a subscriber or login to view or post comments on this article.