Navy's Plan to Build More SEAL Platoons Stalled Amid Discipline Problems

The Navy wants to increase the number of platoons per team from 7 to 9. But plans are not proceeding smoothly.

A plan to boost the number of elite Navy SEAL platoons that could deploy across the globe remains in limbo months after the effort was halted by a string of high-profile scandals.

Naval Special Warfare Command has outlined some of the biggest organizational shifts to the SEAL community in decades, including a push to bump the number of platoons per team from seven to nine.

***

But the effort was abruptly stopped this summer when Rear Adm. Collin Green, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, issued a four-page directive to his commanders calling for a return to good order and discipline for a community that had been making headlines for bad behavior.


The Navy SEALs would grow its number of SEAL platoons "ONLY AFTER we have groomed a sufficient inventory of leadership teams that have been adequately trained, certified and possess the highest standards of character and competence to fill the additional leadership positions in these tactical formations," Green said.

***

A SEAL platoon had just been kicked out of Iraq over allegations of a sexual assault and drinking in the war zone. Several other SEALs had been booted out of the service for cocaine use and another was charged with spoofing someone online in an attempt to get nude photos. Eddie Gallagher had been found guilty at court-martial of wrongfully posing for a photo with a human casualty, and two other Navy special operators were brought to trial for their alleged connections in the death of an Army Green Beret.


In his memo to the command, Green said leadership is the solution to fixing the problems. Lawrence said working groups are meeting to determine when to proceed with creating the new platoons because both the "quantity and quality of leaders" has to be right.
Read the entire article at the link.