Will the elite US Navy Seals be damaged by the Eddie Gallagher saga?

When Osama bin Laden was shot dead at his compound hideaway outside Abbottabad in Pakistan by American special operations commandos, the US Navy Seals, and in particular Seal Team 6 which carried out the mission in May 2011, enjoyed the sort of limelight which rarely comes their way. They became legendary overnight. For these sort of covert troops, limelight is not something which they normally encourage. Like spies they need to operate in the shadows. But there was so much pride and excitement throughout the US, and around the world, that it was impossible to keep the operational details secret for long. Only the identities of the raiding party remained classified. Pretty well everything else was publicised ad infinitum. Then things went a bit wrong. One of the Seal Team 6 members, Robert O'Neil, wrote a book in 2014 in which he claimed he was the one who had killed Bin Laden. That caused a right rumpus, not just because he had come out into the open to reveal more about the raid but because he seemed to be seeking personal glory, and money, for being the commando who actually fired the shot that killed the al-Qaeda leader. His claim was disputed, and the revelations in the book can't have been welcomed by his fellow Seals. Now, five years on, the famous Seals have once again been in the news because of war crime allegations against one of their senior members and all the repercussions that followed. Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, head of Seal Team 7 in Iraq, was accused and acquitted of killing a wounded 17-year-old Iraqi prisoner but convicted of having his photograph taken beside the body and was demoted to petty officer as a result. The brouhaha ever since, with Donald Trump declaring his support for Gallagher and reinstating his higher rank, the decision by the Seal hierarchy to bring disciplinary proceedings against him, Trump's fury, the sacking of Richard Spencer US navy secretary when he tried to intervene without telling his boss Defence Secretary Mark Esper, all of this has put an unwelcome spotlight on the elite special operations unit. Gallagher retires officially on Saturday (November 30) and thanks to Trump's insistence as commander-in-chief, he will retain his much-coveted Trident pin which means he leaves the Seals as an honoured member of one of America's most illustrious military organisations. For the sake of the Seals and their future operations I would hope that the Gallagher saga sinks into oblivion. As General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week, the "case is now closed". Until of course someone from within the Seals pops up and writes a book about it! Literary agents will no doubt be relishing the chance to get their hands on the "true account" of what went on.