Stealth attraction techniques revealed
Repeated assaults, parachute jumps, rugged climbs and blasts from explosives have left many battered, physically and mentally. The cost was high: More members of the unit have died over the past 14 years than in all its previous history. Team 6 members, one former operator said, served as “utility infielders with guns.” The group was sent to Afghanistan to hunt Qaeda leaders, but instead spent years conducting close-in battle against mid- to low-level Taliban and other enemy fighters.
But some team members question whether the relentless pace of operations has eroded the unit’s elite culture and worn down Team 6 on combat missions of little importance. Waves of money have sluiced through SEAL Team 6 since 2001, allowing it to significantly expand its ranks - reaching roughly 300 assault troops, called operators, and 1,500 support personnel - to meet new demands. Team 6 has successfully carried out thousands of dangerous raids that military leaders credit with weakening militant networks, but its activities have also spurred recurring concerns about excessive killing and civilian deaths. The team’s sniper unit was remade to carry out clandestine intelligence operations, and the SEALs joined Central Intelligence Agency operatives in an initiative called the Omega Program, which offered greater latitude in hunting adversaries.
While fighting grinding wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq, Team 6 performed missions elsewhere that blurred the traditional lines between soldier and spy. But an examination of Team 6’s evolution, drawn from dozens of interviews with current and former team members, other military officials and reviews of government documents, reveals a far more complex, provocative tale. Almost everything about SEAL Team 6, a classified Special Operations unit, is shrouded in secrecy - the Pentagon does not even publicly acknowledge that name - though some of its exploits have emerged in largely admiring accounts in recent years.