Ventura was a UDT frogman, he was never a Navy SEAL for one minute in his life. In the early 1970s, both future UDTers and future SEALs attended 6 months of Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL Training in Coronado, CA.
But after that, graduating tadpoles were sent to either a UDT or a SEAL Team. UDTers had the 5321 designator, SEALs had the 5326 designator. At the time that Ventura was a UDT man, SEALs were in combat in Vietnam, and UDTs were not.
By the 1980s, NavSpecWar planned to merge them and the UDTs became SEAL Teams. This happened when I was in Beirut. I went out with the last deploying platoon from UDT-21, and we became the first deployed SEAL Team 4 platoon in Beirut in 1983.
Ventura can call himself a "UDT-SEAL" but he was never a SEAL, 5326, for one day in his life. To be a SEAL, a BUD/S graduate had to be assigned to a SEAL Team, go through their advanced operator training (it was called SBI when I did it in 1980 at ST-2), go on a successful platoon deployment, and get through a 6-month probationary period.
Ventura did none of those things. He was a UDT man in the early 1970s, nothing wrong with that, and he is a member of the UDT/SEAL community, but he was NEVER a SEAL.
I’ve posted this before, but ff the SEALs thought he was misrepresenting himself, he never would have been allowed to attend their reunions, much less given an award at one or invited to be the guest speaker at a BUD/S graudtion ceremony as he was.
Here’s what Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL who has no fondness for Ventura, said. I can find plenty of other similar statements by former SEALS:
I’ve heard the speculation and gossip about Jesse Ventura’s Navy SEAL status and wanted to set the record straight. Jesse Ventura graduated with Basic Underwater Demolition Class 58 and, like it or not, he earned his status. Some say he’s a UDT (Underwater Demolition Team), and not a “SEAL,” but that’s bullshit.
Others have seen the flaw in this analogy, and mentioned in private SEAL forums, “try telling that to a WWII UDT veteran who swam ashore before the landing craft on D-Day.” The UDT’s and SEALs are essentially one and the same. It’s why the UDT is still part of the training acronym BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL).
Like it or not, Jesse Ventura is a Navy SEAL. He did the pushups and put up with the cold water, just like the rest of us
Yet he continually calls himself one as does the lame, can’t be bothered to work and research it media...
So we’ve got a jerk face, self-promoting anti-America liar on one hand...
And a murdered SEAL sniper hero who put his life on the line for us on the other...
And who does a MN jury believe?
I know who I believe...