By LOLITA C. BALDOR
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Navy SEALs based in Virginia are facing disciplinary action for racist conduct, and several of their platoon and team leaders are being disciplined for leadership failures, according to a defense official.
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The two enlisted Team 4 members are being punished for developing racist memes targeting a Black sailor in their platoon and circulating them in a group chat with other team members, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of an ongoing investigation. The memes depicted the sailor as a slave, according to visuals viewed by The Associated Press.
According to the official, the sailor who was targeted reported the incidents this year, but they took place beginning in 2022 and the memes circulated for years. The sailor had been in one of the SEAL Team 4 platoons but had his qualifications and SEAL trident revoked last year. He alleged that his failure to remain a SEAL was due to the racist treatment.
Two officials said that as a result of the investigation, which was conducted by Naval Special Warfare Group 2, the sailor’s SEAL qualifications are being reinstated and he will get back pay. The group oversees SEAL Team 4 and the platoons that make up the team, located at Joint Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Hampton Roads, Virginia
The probe found that the platoon and SEAL Team 4 leaders did not adequately address the sailor’s concerns about racist behavior and that the decision to revoke his qualifications was flawed.
“This was a very shocking case of explicit and repeated racist memes directed at our client in a platoon-wide text thread,” said Timothy Parlatore, the sailor’s lawyer, referring to the memes shared over a Signal chat. “They modified his face in photos to look like a monkey and portrayed him as a chained slave on a slave ship, among others.”
The two enlisted sailors responsible for the memes face non-judicial punishment and punitive letters in their files. Both actions can be career ending, or can result in demotions or loss of pay. Other actions are still pending.
The platoon and team leaders are also facing administrative actions, including disciplinary letters in their files, that could determine if they continue as SEALs.
In a statement, Naval Special Warfare Command acknowledged the investigation into “serious allegations of unprofessional conduct within one of our commands” and said “accountability actions are ongoing.”
It added that “we are dedicated to fostering a climate of dignity and respect, and after conducting a thorough and fair investigation, we will hold anyone found responsible of misconduct accountable.”
Parlatore praised Rear Adm. Jamie Sands, head of NSW, and his staff for taking swift action to “investigate, reverse the negative repercussions that our client received, and move to hold people accountable.”
This is just the latest significant investigation into behavior issues and command failures at Naval Special Warfare Command. And it underscores racial concerns that are not new to the special warfare leaders.
Commando forces across the services — particularly the officers — tend to be far less diverse than the military as a whole. And leaders in recent years have tried to attract a wider array of recruits in order to develop a more diverse force.
Those efforts, however, could be threatened now, as the Trump administration and Defense Department leaders have made it a priority to end diversity and inclusion programs across the military and the government as a whole. That could exacerbate racist problems in the smaller, largely-white teams.
As of March 2021, a full 95% of all SEAL and combatant-craft crew officers were white and just 2% were Black, according to Naval Special Warfare statistics provided to the AP. The enlisted ranks were only slightly more diverse.
Those number are starkly different from the overall Navy population, where about 40% of the enlisted force and 24% of its officers are non-white.
According to the defense official, the sailor filed more than a dozen specific complaints about racist behavior and about half were substantiated.
And as Group 2 leaders began to look into the complaints, a second sailor — who is white — also complained about bullying by other platoon members. That amplified the broader concerns about the command climate and the later findings of leadership failures.
Other recent investigations also found training and command problems.
Last October a highly critical review found that two Navy SEALs drowned as they tried to climb aboard a ship carrying illicit Iranian-made weapons to Yemen because of glaring training failures and a lack of understanding about what to do after falling into deep, turbulent waters.
And in 2023, an investigation into the death of a SEAL candidate a year earlier concluded that the training program was plagued by widespread failures in medical care, poor oversight and the use of performance-enhancing drugs that have increased the risk of injury and death to those seeking to become elite commandos.
