Not everyone has heard yet the story of the three Navy SEALs being court marshaled for allegedly “hitting” a terrorist in Iraq. Here is their story:
“It makes me happy when hearing about a terrorist detainee getting a split lip, courtesy of a Navy SEAL who captured him. Especially when the detainee is the accused brains behind the grisly ambush of four U.S. contractors in Fallujah in 2004, their bodies burned inside their vehicle, dragged through the streets by a chanting mob, then hanged from a Euphrates River bridge. The cruel episode was photographed and posted online as a warning to the Big Bad West: Thus to our enemies. If, as the government claims, Ahmed Hashim Abed is the guy behind the horror, he should thank Allah he has survived long enough to be able to accuse one of his captors of punching him in the stomach. Or the face.” (courtesy of reader Rhonda Ringstad)
Petty Officer 1st class Julio Huertas, 28, pleaded not guilty to charges of dereliction, impeding an investigation and lying to investigators. Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe of Yorktown, 25, is charged with dereliction and lying. These two SEALs will face the man they “hit” in a trial now set in Camp Victory, Iraq on April 5th.
A third SEAL, Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe, 24, deferred a plea on charges of hitting a detainee, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators.
The SEALs are attracting much support in the form of 350,000 members on a Facebook pages and protestors at the court house. The mother of one of the slain contractors drove from Ohio to offer the men “everything I can give them.”
I personally feel that this situation is ridiculous. From now on, every captured terrorist will cry that he has been “mistreated.” Do terrorists have that kind of consideration for their victims? Hell, no. Let’s stop wasting government money taking our warriors to court for doing their job and rounding up the scum of the earth. Please show your support for these three Navy SEALs by signing a petition online and/or writing your congressman and senator.
My thanks,
Marliss Melton
Navy SEALs Series Team Twelve

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear..
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
“It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘ Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘ Nam ‘,
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall..”

” So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many
people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our
U.S service men and women for our being able to celebrate these
festivities. Let’s try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people
stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq

I have the utmost respect for women who’ve pledged their hearts to a man in the military, especially for the wives of Navy SEALs.  Every military spouse has to make amazing sacrifices. Having been married to both an Army officer a Navy petty officer, I know what it means to wait and worry. Lots of women do it, but the wives of Navy SEALs are a special breed. The first thing you notice when you meet them is they’re beautiful. All of them. But there’s usually an amazing brain behind that beauty. Like their Navy SEAL husbands they are all intelligent and accomplished human beings. And like their husbands, they are also impossibly brave. Imagine letting your husband go without a moment’s notice to face the worst imaginable and terrifying dangers halfway across the world. It takes faith to do that–faith that what your husband is doing is in America’s best interest; that it will save lives; that it is noble and worthy. 

     Two years ago, I had the privelege of meeting Laura and Patsy, the widows of Navy SEALs Michael McGreevy and Danny Dietz. Both men perished in Operatin Redwing, Afghanistan, 2005. Every year Laura and her friends raise money for a scholarship in memory of her husband. Both women have soldiered on without their husbands. Having made the choice to love them, they also made the choice to be just as brave–perhaps even more brave, for keeping it together when they were left behind. God bless you both, Ladies.

     Since the advent of Suzanne Brockmann, Navy SEAL books have enjoyed increasing popularity as readers everywhere discover the undying appeal of the world’s sexiest man. I’m proud to say I continue in Suzanne’s tradition by portraying heroes that will rock your world and leave you feeling privileged to know them.

For all that SEALs are capable of doing, for all the training they’ve endured, for all the crazy stunts they’ve pulled, for their fearlessness in facing down terror, who needs these guys to be vampires or reincarnated souls of pirates?? They are awesome just as they are. Who else would jump out of a helicopter in the dead of night or fast rope onto the stern of a smuggler’s yacht? Who else would slam into fifteen foot swells going fifty miles an hour to beat a shipment of illegal weapons? Who else could curl the toes of a woman with the mere act of stripping off his shirt?

Navy SEALs are the guardians of us lesser mortals. And yet…they are also painfully human. And when they fall in love they fall hard.

     Thanks to my proximity to East Coast SEALs in Virginia Beach and the fact that my husband is retired Navy, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know real SEALs and the women brave enough to love them. Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine edits my action scenes for authenticity without expecting a dime. That’s just the kind of guy he is. That’s the kind of guy they all are.

    Yes, a man in uniform looks good, but Navy SEALs are the best of the best. Feel free to disagree, but you’ll need to support your argument!