Just noting that Seth Harp has made another guest appearance on the
to promote the above mentioned book. The direct link to the episode is
.
Thank you for sharing the new War Nerd episode featuring Seth Harp! Took me a couple of days to get through all 104 minutes, but glad to have tuned in: definitely added to my reading of his body of work.
While I applaud Seth's empathy as a man, a veteran and an author, he
really needs to take the claims of his subjects' ex-gfs with more salt.
In the US and I can only assume other Western countries, girls who date SOF operators, intelligence officers, military aviators (especially fighter pilots), and relatively elite LEOs (e.g. SWAT officers, USSS, FBI, etc.) — men whose chosen professions have been
mysticized — tend to enjoy bragging about their bfs' status, if not exploits. This sort of behavior — however natural and to be expected — inevitably amplifies the already exaggerated tales of heroism and fortitude that such men may have recounted to bed them, win them back and/or keep them interested.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a
relatively disproportionate number of operators and operatives have "complicated love lives" (less so with enablers), especially at JSOC due to the intense OPTEMPO. Even when you're CONUS, you'll find yourself constantly away from home on TDY for all sorts of courses and exercises, or so I've been told.
Inevitably, a sliver of these characters — by absolutely no means all or most of them — have few, if any qualms about lying to the girls they date because:
1. it'll get you laid;
2. you're probably a TDY or two away from parting ways anyhow; and
3. you're
arguably less likely to jeopardize your clearance over classified pillow talk that's been grossly contaminated with disinformation.
Granted — and perhaps to the surprise of some cynics — there are plenty of guys with amazingly solid marriages, despite frequent absences from home. However, those stories are not quite as compelling or interesting to the majority of Seth's audience.
Seth deserves some
kudos for his willingness to humanize men like the late
: despite their demons — and the toll their chosen profession inflicted upon them — none of these operators would have ever made it through A&S, never mind OTC unless they were squared away both physically and mentally, especially in terms of "street smarts."
Listening to the catalogue of US special forces bodies in this episode reminds me that one of the most striking things about the United States is the sheer profusion of law enforcement, intelligence and military bodies. There are so many fiefdoms, each with its own lord, each jealously guarding its privileges against encroachment by others. One could argue that the United States is a very large country and that this multiplicity is simply a function of scale, but I'm not at all convinced by that explanation, and I suspect there are much richer explanations to be found.
The
phenomenon you described can be broken down in a multitude of ways and examined from a number of lenses.
However, the best explanation I've ever heard — from a jurist over drinks nonetheless, and this attempt to summarily retell it ain't going to do it justice — is simply:
common law.
The American system of governance is rooted in and developed from English common law, which has been known for its relatively decentralized system of rule since the Magna Carta was enshrined in the 13th century.
On top of underpinning America's federal system, the decentralizing effects of common law have been further amplified by both the sheer size of the country, — as you highlighted — as well as the twists and turns of American history.
When the American colonies first rebelled against the British crown, the treasonous colonial elite organized their polity under the Articles of Confederation, which created a structural construct closer to what the EU looks like now than what the US is today.
The Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution in 1789, but intense competition between multiple centers of power continued, and culminated in the Civil War in 1861 over states' rights. Even to this day, the issue of states' rights remains
somewhat relevant, and also why the American legal system is absurdly complicated: every state has a slightly different set of laws (it's why recreational cannabis is permissible in some states, but technically completely illegal in others).
The American founding fathers' desire for "checks and balances" created a system of governance that offered significant and beneficent flexibility in addressing and accounting for local priorities and preferences, but that's also largely why we have more lawyers per capita than any other country.
Within the broader context of the podcast episode and Seth's new book,
, one consideration worth highlighting is that the civilian prosecutors and judges in and around Fayetteville aren't necessarily simply looking the other way when certain SOF operators break the law out of corruption or fear, but rather deferring the carriage of justice to the offending soldiers' chain of command, which is hardly novel.
Likewise, if the late MSG Lavigne was indeed killed by his own brothers in arms, as Mr. Harp insinuated, then that would arguably represent military justice by decimation, which could not possibly have been easy for those tasked with — and pained by — carrying it out.
