Are the Navy SEALs becoming too glamorous?

[sweeteviljesus]

@Velocity

For the most part, of course, the hype that surrounds the SEALs isn’t their fault; Hollywood and popular culture will glamorize what Hollywood and popular culture wants to glamorize. But are the SEALs getting more attention than they should, and does the fact that many other military special-ops forces still do remain reasonable low-key and low-profile make the SEALs’ glamor that much more incongruous?

One thing that should be noted is that the Pentagon is behind a lot of their notoriety. Act of Valor and a bazillion shows on the Discovery channel were made with the DoD’s help.

[aruvqan]

@thelurkinghorror

Read about their training regimen and then tell me it looks glamorous.

Delta Force looked poised to take the pop culture mantle but that fizzled out. Plus is it the SEALS as a whole or DEVGRU aka Seal Team Six that informs the pop culture? And nobody likes the Ramgers…

I like Rangers, we had a retired ranger as a roomie for a while back in the late 1990s. Great guy. Can’t think of many other roomies who would find a saturday teaching his new girlfriend how to field strip and reassemble my AK and then having speed contests doing it fun =)

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@thelurkinghorror

I initially misread this as saying that the USAF only has these “joke” units. But they do have some serious firepower forces. I kinda hope that some movie will happen. Maybe the NOAA discovers R’lyeh?

I wasn’t laughing at the combat weathermen and ATCs. From what I read on Wikipedia, they’re not so much “Melvin Pencilneck, U.S. Weather Service, plays soldier” as “Sgt Asskicker is also a trained meteorologist”.

Right, but most people hang up on the last two and can name the other 5 (or maybe they forget USCG). The other two of them aren’t exactly military though, as much as I’d like to see C. Everett Koop storm beaches in the name of spreading the word of moustacheless beards.

“No one wanted to mess with the Surgeon General’s 105th Public Health Battalion. Enemies trembled at the approach of the famed Fighting Neckbeards.”

[RickJay]

@Robert163

they have allways been glamorized by hollywood

I’d never heard of the Navy SEALs until the movie “Navy SEALs,” which came out in 1990. That was, as near as I can tell, the first time in the history of mainstream cinema in which the Navy SEALs played a central part in a movie. Bear in mind the unit had existed for 28 years at that point.

[thelurkinghorror]

@Slow_Moving_Vehicle

I wasn’t laughing at the combat weathermen and ATCs. From what I read on Wikipedia, they’re not so much “Melvin Pencilneck, U.S. Weather Service, plays soldier” as “Sgt Asskicker is also a trained meteorologist”.

I know. It’s like the Hospital Corpsmen (is that the plural?) They stitch wounds and storm beaches.
“No one wanted to mess with the Surgeon General’s 105th Public Health Battalion. Enemies trembled at the approach of the famed Fighting Neckbeards.”
[/QUOTE]

He could team up with Mecha Lincoln to fight vampires.

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@thelurkinghorror

I know. It’s like the Hospital Corpsmen (is that the plural?) They stitch wounds and storm beaches.
“No one wanted to mess with the Surgeon General’s 105th Public Health Battalion. Enemies trembled at the approach of the famed Fighting Neckbeards.”

He could team up with Mecha Lincoln to fight vampires.
[/QUOTE]

Go on - I think we have Michael Bay’s next movie, here.

[msmith537]

@Flyer

The Delta Force has always been the elite of the Special Forces, ever since the unit was formed. They just haven’t gotten nearly the publicity.

Haven’t gotten the publicity?!