Navy Seals Exposed!

February 22, 2012

Navy Seals Exposed!

BY: JOE THOMPSON

Top image: Denis Poroy / AP Photo

The U.S. Navy SEALs. These highly trained, elite Special Forces soldiers are often portrayed in TV shows (Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O) or film (the current Act of Valor motion picture), but these fictionalized stories rarely show the brutal, intense training these men go through. As the article states, "While other budgets are shrinking, funding for special ops has doubled since 2001; in the same time, the numbers of deployments has quadrupled. Admiral William H. McRaven, who heads the Special Operations Command, is seizing the moment, asking for expanded authority to conduct the lightning-fast, pinprick strikes that have laid low al-Qaeda operatives and Somali pirates alike."

This series of images, taken from numerous sources, does a great job of encapsulating the journey these young men take to become the best our military has to offer. Yes, many of these pictures match those stories you often hear about—incredibly built men training in their skivvies—and of course those are the ones we spotlight below, but we're not looking to exploit these men or trivialize their jobs.

Gary Kieffer / Zuma Press