Racist memes shared by Navy SEALs prompt investigation, disciplinary actions

By LOLITA C BALDOR WASHINGTON AP Two Navy SEALs based in Virginia are facing disciplinary action for racist conduct and several of their platoon and gang leaders are being disciplined for leadership failures according to a defense official Related Articles Flight evacuated arrested following reports of a bomb threat on jetliner at San Diego airport Levi Strauss agrees to sell Casual Friday staple Dockers for up to million George Wendt who played a beloved barfly on Cheers and uncovered another home onstage dies at Weinstein trial turns tense as accuser gestures at him and lawyers clash over a movie reference Prosecutors charge congresswoman with pushing and grabbing agents while trying to stop mayor s arrest The two enlisted Squad members are being punished for emerging racist memes targeting a Black sailor in their platoon and circulating them in a group chat with other band members according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of an ongoing study The memes depicted the sailor as a slave according to visuals viewed by The Associated Press According to the official the sailor who was targeted announced the incidents this year but they took place beginning in and the memes circulated for years The sailor had been in one of the SEAL Club platoons but had his qualifications and SEAL trident revoked last year He alleged that his failure to remain a SEAL was due to the racist medicine Two officers revealed that as a product of the probe which was conducted by Naval Special Warfare Group the sailor s SEAL qualifications are being reinstated and he will get back pay The group oversees SEAL Association and the platoons that make up the organization located at Joint Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Hampton Roads Virginia The probe determined that the platoon and SEAL Group leaders did not adequately address the sailor s concerns about racist behavior and that the decision to revoke his qualifications was flawed This was a very shocking matter of explicit and repeated racist memes directed at our client in a platoon-wide text thread mentioned Timothy Parlatore the sailor s lawyer referring to the memes shared over a Signal chat They modified his face in photos to look like a monkey and portrayed him as a chained slave on a slave ship among others The two enlisted sailors responsible for the memes face non-judicial punishment and punitive letters in their files Both actions can be career ending or can development in demotions or loss of pay Other actions are still pending The platoon and crew leaders are also facing administrative actions including disciplinary letters in their files that could determine if they continue as SEALs In a comment Naval Special Warfare Command acknowledged the review into serious statements of unprofessional conduct within one of our commands and commented accountability actions are ongoing It added that we are dedicated to fostering a setting of dignity and respect and after conducting a thorough and fair review we will hold anyone determined responsible of misconduct accountable Parlatore praised Rear Adm Jamie Sands head of NSW and his staff for taking swift action to investigate reverse the negative repercussions that our client received and move to hold people accountable This is just the latest key research into behavior issues and command failures at Naval Special Warfare Command And it underscores racial concerns that are not new to the special warfare leaders Commando forces across the services particularly the officers tend to be far less diverse than the military as a whole And leaders in fresh years have tried to attract a wider array of recruits in order to develop a more diverse force Those efforts however could be threatened now as the Trump administration and Defense Department leaders have made it a priority to end diversity and inclusion programs across the military and the governing body as a whole That could exacerbate racist problems in the smaller largely-white teams As of March a full of all SEAL and combatant-craft crew officers were white and just were Black according to Naval Special Warfare statistics provided to the AP The enlisted ranks were only slightly more diverse Those number are starkly different from the overall Navy population where about of the enlisted force and of its officers are non-white According to the defense official the sailor filed more than a dozen specific complaints about racist behavior and about half were substantiated And as Group leaders began to look into the complaints a second sailor who is white also complained about bullying by other platoon members That amplified the broader concerns about the command atmosphere and the later findings of leadership failures Other new investigations also exposed training and command problems Last October a highly critical review discovered that two Navy SEALs drowned as they tried to climb aboard a ship carrying illicit Iranian-made weapons to Yemen because of glaring training failures and a lack of understanding about what to do after falling into deep turbulent waters And in an study into the death of a SEAL candidate a year earlier concluded that the training venture was plagued by widespread failures in medicinal care poor oversight and the use of performance-enhancing drugs that have increased the jeopardy of injury and death to those seeking to become elite commandos