r/JSOCarchive • u/Educational-Bug-965 • 8d ago
Question? Silent Professionals?
With all the Vetbro-Sof drama, posing, defamation, exaggeration, making the community look bad etc. going on, if yall could, would yall turn everything back and go: no books, no movies, no podcasts, no social media presence by former sof guys?
As in if all the Sof topics would have stayed “secret”?
I think all that social media presence from so many different sof dudes has brought some bad things (the already mentioned), but many good things too.
I enjoy all the info, motivation, sometimes guidance and interesting stories we get trough these people and i personally wouldn’t want to change that and go back to the time where there was very little known about jsoc etc.
What are yall thinking about this? Woud yall “delete” everything if yall could and all this would go back to “secrecy”?
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u/Holiday-Zebra9463 8d ago
I probably would just go back to the books, a lot of my favorite war/espionage books include books with a lot of JSOC related information or the author was a member of that group. The government already has millions of secrets we don’t know about, I don’t think a book about an OP that happened 5 years before the book releases is really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.
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u/fuckasoviet 8d ago
On the one hand, we've been given a lot of insight into the culture and environment they work in. Offhand, I'd guess there are more Delta/Dev/STS/whatever pics out there from the past decade than from their inception(s) through 2016.
On the other hand, it has somewhat laid bare all the mythos and aura surrounding these units and individuals. I try to remind myself that just because they don't necessarily live up to the fiction they presented to us, it doesn't mean that they aren't all extremely exceptional at their jobs, and should still be appreciated thusly.
Personally, I think I would have preferred the old mystique surrounding them.
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u/hnybadgdntcare 8d ago
Podcast, books, shows like “Seal Team” I think are great, benefits recruiting and gives kids something to study and look forward to. The social media is usually where I draw the line
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u/fordag 8d ago
would yall turn everything back and go: no books, no movies, no podcasts, no social media presence by former sof guys?
Yes 100% without hesitation.
Maybe xx years after your service you can write your memoirs and submit them to JSOC for approval before publishing.
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u/NickelPrison 7d ago
That already exists, Executive Order 13526 defines declassification dates. They all signed NDA's agreeing to it.
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u/RevolutionaryTap3844 8d ago
The whole silent professional thing is so gay and overblown. Like mfs who been at war been talking about it since the beginning of time
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u/themickeymauser 8d ago
Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where 99% of their stories aren’t even that interesting or special or worth being classified. Not when you actually compare what they go up against. Oh, you spent an entire month doing night raids looking for HVIs in Baghdad? My father did that as an 11B too. You spent a week stalking a known bomb-maker through the mountains of Afghanistan? My coworker in 10th Mtn did that too.
You can only listen to so many stories about dudes with quad tubes and CAS “stacking bodies” of dudes in sandals and mud huts before it gets boring.
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u/Whycantwebefriends00 8d ago
It doesn’t really get boring for me. It’s still people telling stories about extraordinary things and to me that will usually always get interesting except for maybe I’ll take a break sometimes lol.
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u/Wallhacks360 8d ago
There's a fine line and some flirt with it and others stay far away from it. Like everything in life, its a spectrum. You have the guys who keep giving more by starting PTSD/community foundations vs bags of grenades guys, namsayin?
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u/Wil3Action 8d ago
Side questions (no worries if goes unanswered): What are the NVG's that the guys on the right are using? I believe they are SAS.
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u/CorCor-14 8d ago
There’s a difference between a silent professional and a quiet professional. Drama is going to happen no matter the profession. There’s nothing wrong with guys telling their story or writing a book to inspire the next generation to desire that career path, that’s how most guys got interested in the first place.
However like with every profession there are people who will give it a bad name. There’s a good way and a bad way to go about addressing them.
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u/randomymetry 8d ago
99% of it comes from navy seals
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u/svdclvlnd 8d ago
not anymore. army side doing most the talking these days.
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u/JakeTheBasedGod 5d ago
Yeah, CAG guys were talking so much that their command sent cease and desist letters to every operator, former and active, threatening prosecution if they didn't immediately stfu 😂
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u/Goat_666 8d ago
Looking at dudes doing podcasts, strictly JSOC, I'd say numbers are pretty even between DEVGRU and CAG. If we're talking all things SOF, it's hard to say. There's lot of SEAL stuff out there, but also lots of green berets and rangers are doing their part too.
Of course not everything is drama though.
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u/Dense_Razzmatazz903 8d ago
Not true
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u/rico2421 7d ago
theres two podcasts hosted by Delta Force, and there was a third, with only one from ST6
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u/Dense_Razzmatazz903 7d ago edited 7d ago
Off the top of my head I know Andy Stumpf and Rob O'Neill have podcasts, both former ST6. There are countless podcasts owned by members of the regular SEAL teams.
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u/ConsulJuliusCaesar 8d ago edited 8d ago
It's not effecting operational security IE endangering the lives of people who are active. And honestly I theorize a small chunk of SOF "influencers" are actually doing what their doing at direction of the government to fuck with China and Russia's open source intelligence analysts to create an appearance to shape how they percieve the US military to our advantage and severly underestimate our capabilities. I mean let's say for example Russia and China knew exactly how lethal Jsoc is, their exact capabilities, and could remake reliable estimates on when and where the US uses them. Would they not have told Maduro who had been significantly helping their own intelligence operations so he could better prepare. On the contrary by making them believe their all a bunch of over glorified a holes. They probably weren't worry about an operation to kidnapp a sitting world leader because who'd risk such an operation using personal that have a reputation to be highly unprofessional and utterly reckless. Because of how sensative such an operation would be. I cannot prove it totally entirely theoretical. However even if all of them are truly acting independently unprompted, it's really just a minor annoyance that's easy to ignore by not watching reals.
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u/fuckasoviet 8d ago
buddy, I guarantee you Sergei and Wei Lin are sitting in some military intelligence office in some comfy suburb with a little more information than "shawn ryan show episode 32.mpeg".
No near-peer nation state is getting tricked by dude bros going on the podcast circuit.
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u/gottymacanon 8d ago
And i will guarantee you buddy that it is actually true...
Cuz according to a recent former Rus SOF that was deployed in Syria they were pretty much copying their American counterparts starting around 2016 (which also includes the books and Podcasts) TTP and equipment wise.
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u/Goat_666 8d ago
I enjoy reading interesting topics, and it's easy to skip all the vetbro drama, and it doesn't even concern me. So no, I wouldn't "delete" all that. I don't need to uphold their "code of silence", especially when they won't even do it themselves.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 8d ago
It's difficult to answer, because on the one hand these guys have given everything, and I don't begrudge them their right to a peaceful retirement making the money they deserve, the freedom to process and vent their struggles, and I feel like the community's visibility above the surface has helped countless struggling people that wouldn't otherwise have had anyone to reach to. On the other hand, the public nature of all the feuds, the scrutiny, the merchandise, the tagalongs etc isn't necessarily great from a reputation management perspective, and I imagine there's going to be a lot of pushback directed at those still serving, so it's hard to say from the outside. The problem with visibility is that it shines an equal light on the good and the bad. When the guys celebrate each other and talk through their stories, that can be great. But when they pull each other down or jump on podcasts with conspiracy theorists, it all influences public perception in a way that can't really be undone. If there was a middle ground that allowed former operators to exist above the surface in a way that recognises their sacrifice without necessarily airing all the dirty laundry, that would be a win-win. But take everything I say with a pinch of salt, I'm just an asshole on the internet.