Posted on 05/12/2023 7:32:31 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Daniel Swift’s nerves were shot. By the start of 2019, his Navy SEAL colleagues said, he was hardly eating or sleeping.
He had separated from his wife. A court had barred him from seeing his four children, and he was facing legal charges for false imprisonment and domestic battery.
Mr. Swift told fellow SEALs in San Diego, where he was based, that he was planning to go to Africa to fight wildlife poachers. They brushed off the comment, convinced that Mr. Swift, a soldier’s soldier, would never abandon his post.
A week later, he disappeared. Navy investigators searched for him, but Mr. Swift was always a step ahead.
He resurfaced in March of last year when he slipped into a group messaging chat of current and former SEALs. He was now fighting Russians in Ukraine, he texted. He petitioned the group for supplies, and later invited members to join him on the front lines. None did. Some advised him to come home. Others marveled as word of his exploits spread.
Mr. Swift was among thousands of young men who flooded to Kyiv from the West, including American veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many said they were drawn to the cause of a democratic country resisting a larger autocratic one.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
He is a nut.
Fool.
Can you say PTSD?
I knew you could.
He can stay.
He got himself killed for a no good reason.
Psyc problems but each to his own.
Marine infantry, veins-in-ma-teeth SEALs, those dudes like to brawl, God bless ‘em.
Happy their on our side.
Sounds very much like a cover story used to [thinly] disguise our involvement training and fighting alongside Ukrainians.
...Mr. Swift, a soldier’s soldier...
Are there any journalists with any military background?
Was he killed? WSJ paywall...
Sounds like a man who enjoys his work for what he was trained to do. Being a soldier who has been trained for combat may be the only skill set he has. There are certain people who thrive on danger, some race cars, others on the high wire and others in dangerous jobs like deep sea commercial fishermen or lumberjacks in the wilderness. Nothing new in human nature, some men seek their destiny and enjoy their lives filled with adventure and uncertainty of any future or weather they live to see another day. Warriors who could care less about who the enemy is or why, they just have a need to be in the action and calling their own shots, no pun intended.
De-limbed Lieutenant Dan (as Forest Gump was dutifully saving his life): “A relative of mine has been killed in every major military conflict in U.S. history. Damn it, Gump—you’re robbing me of my rightful glory!”
+1 two thumbs up extra bravo good Meester Fawlty!
General who led US Marines in Iraq says “It’s fun to shoot some people”
Jerry White
7 February 2005
A three-star Marine general gave an indication of the homicidal ethos guiding the US occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan when he declared during a military conference in San Diego Tuesday that “It’s fun to shoot some people.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/02/gene-f07.html
Responding to a question about fighting the Iraqi resistance, Lieutenant General James N. Mattis—who is in charge of developing Marine war-fighting doctrine and tactics—said, “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up front with you, I like brawling.”
Last I heard, Kenya was hiring killers to hunt poachers, so it’s not a bad cover story. I got to greet a group of four ex-Rhodesian army soldiers, armed to the teeth, many years ago, but I much preferred the air conditioned bus full of Japanese tourists and their cameras.
As to why they kill, instead of arrest, it is simple. The poachers are armed, there are a LOT of them, and there are no prisons to put them in. Basically they are less than zero.
Add to it that there is a lot of ground to patrol.
Well said.
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