SEAL-spotting becomes local sport in Virginia Beach after bin Laden raid
VIRGINIA BEACH — Finding a Navy SEAL in this city should be easy. This is where hundreds of America’s most elite warriors are based. This is where their heroic exploits are celebrated and retold, especially since a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a bold raid on the al-Qaeda mastermind’s Pakistani hideout.
But finding a real, active-duty SEAL in this beach resort — not to mention one of the 20 or so members of SEAL Team 6 who swept into bin Laden’s compound early this month — is like chasing echoes in a fun house.
.Almost everyone has a military pedigree in this Navy town, so almost everyone claims to know a SEAL, a former SEAL or somebody else who does. After a while, you start thinking you see them everywhere, until you realize that even here, in the heart of SEAL country, all those years of speculation about bin Laden’s whereabouts have been replaced by a new post-Sept. 11 mystery: Where is the SEAL, or SEALs, who put the bullets in bin Laden? Someone has to know around here.
“They say they know who did it or they know someone who knows someone who did it,” said Carlie Kinzey, 18, a server at the Raven restaurant, which was a popular hangout for SEALs years ago when SEAL commando-turned-novelist Dick Marcinko’s daughter waited tables there.
Without fanfare, SEAL Team 6, as it’s popularly known, returned to its base outside this city last weekend after a congratulatory visit with President Obama. The Navy Times, citing unnamed sources, said the elite commandos — who actually go by the official name of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DevGru — are divided into four color-coded squadrons based at Dam Neck, Va. Of those, Red Squadron got the call because its 50 or so members, about half of whom were chosen for the raid, were on alert.
Since then, SEALs have become the object of almost feverish attention here, with many people feeling proud of their warriors’ heroics, protective of their identities and a little paranoid about the possibility of some al-Qaeda payback.
SEAL-spotting becomes local sport in Virginia Beach after bin Laden raid - The Washington Post
VIRGINIA BEACH — Finding a Navy SEAL in this city should be easy. This is where hundreds of America’s most elite warriors are based. This is where their heroic exploits are celebrated and retold, especially since a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in a bold raid on the al-Qaeda mastermind’s Pakistani hideout.
But finding a real, active-duty SEAL in this beach resort — not to mention one of the 20 or so members of SEAL Team 6 who swept into bin Laden’s compound early this month — is like chasing echoes in a fun house.
.Almost everyone has a military pedigree in this Navy town, so almost everyone claims to know a SEAL, a former SEAL or somebody else who does. After a while, you start thinking you see them everywhere, until you realize that even here, in the heart of SEAL country, all those years of speculation about bin Laden’s whereabouts have been replaced by a new post-Sept. 11 mystery: Where is the SEAL, or SEALs, who put the bullets in bin Laden? Someone has to know around here.
“They say they know who did it or they know someone who knows someone who did it,” said Carlie Kinzey, 18, a server at the Raven restaurant, which was a popular hangout for SEALs years ago when SEAL commando-turned-novelist Dick Marcinko’s daughter waited tables there.
Without fanfare, SEAL Team 6, as it’s popularly known, returned to its base outside this city last weekend after a congratulatory visit with President Obama. The Navy Times, citing unnamed sources, said the elite commandos — who actually go by the official name of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DevGru — are divided into four color-coded squadrons based at Dam Neck, Va. Of those, Red Squadron got the call because its 50 or so members, about half of whom were chosen for the raid, were on alert.
Since then, SEALs have become the object of almost feverish attention here, with many people feeling proud of their warriors’ heroics, protective of their identities and a little paranoid about the possibility of some al-Qaeda payback.
SEAL-spotting becomes local sport in Virginia Beach after bin Laden raid - The Washington Post
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