Some Navy SEALs "Selling the Trident"

Navy SEALs accused of profiteering, putting lives "in danger"
CBS News
April 12, 2017

As Navy SEALs talk publicly to CBS News about drug abuse in the ranks for the first time, some members of the elite force say drugs aren’t the only problem.

According to interviews, e-mails and text messages from nine current and former SEALs, “...there’s been a corruption within the teams,” one of them wrote. “The death of our quiet professionalism continues to erode at our ethos, and endangers our teammates overseas, not to mention our families at home.”

Three Navy SEALs -- one active duty, two retired -- agreed to talk to CBS News on camera if we disguised their faces and change their voices to protect them from retribution.

One SEAL told CBS News correspondent David Martin that “the community has got to stop seeking the limelight and exposing what they do or it continues to put people in danger.”

They accused fellow SEALs of profiteering -- or as they called it -- “selling the Trident,” a reference to the insignia they earn after making it through basic training. Fitness routines based on SEAL training have become a cottage industry as have books by former SEALs.

“They are just guys that are going in to try and sell the brand, to sell that trident on their chest, to make a buck from it,” said one SEAL. “And frankly if that’s all they were doing, so what? But the thing they’re selling is information.”

These men say movies like “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Captain Phillips” are all too accurate in showing the way SEALs operate. One movie, “Act of Valor,” included active duty SEALs in the cast.
read more here