D.C.'s see-and-be-seen restaurant Cafe Milano shut its doors to the public Thursday night for an event that honored both the Navy SEALs and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- though the premise was problematic. First, the SEALs are a stealthy group, and grew bashful when asked to stand for applause. (They did, and were given plenty of it). Second, Gates couldn't make the intimate dinner, leaving former National Security Advisor Jim Jones to do the heavy lifting. Jones gladly accepted Gates' Courage and Compassion Award, being given to him by the Light of Healing Hope Foundation and the Navy SEAL Foundation. "Bob Gates is not someone I've known for a long time, but someone I've known of for a long time and I'm admired him at a distance," Jones said. "I know if he couldn't be here there's a very good reason because this would have meant a lot to him," Jones added.
Emcee Fox News Channel's Bret Baier revealed that he was emailing with Gates' senior adviser throughout the program, passing along more regrets. "He really wanted to be here," Baier said. Among the attendees were Fox's Ed Henry, Jeweler Ann Hand and CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who was totally cool with a competitor being a bigger man of the hour. "Bret is a good friend of mine and he's a very decent guy and an excellent journalist," Blitzer said.
First click on this sentence for the link to Cafe Milano...
Second.
Can anyone really call these guys bashful or secretive anymore? If you think that then you're just a homer and have hero worshiping tendencies.
I have never seen the type of publicity seeking from a Special Ops outfit like I'm seeing from the US Navy SEALs.
Its disgraceful.
Uncalled for.
Embarrassing.
Why someone hasn't called them on it from inside SOCOM is beyond me, but these guys need to get jerked back with a quickness.
Sol, have you ever considered you might be reading this wrong? That maybe AOV and all this publicity is being orchestrated by the Obama administration for political gain? Obama has used the SEALs for political gain before (Osama Raid), and would probably do it again as November is coming up.
ReplyDeleteno.
ReplyDeletei totally disagree with that as a premise.
the US Army Special Forces...US Army Rangers...USMC Special Ops...USAF Special Ops could all be apart of this fan fair but they're not.
additionally, there was no reason for the SEALs to make AOV, and circumvent DoD procedures but they did because THEY wanted the movie made....additionally have you looked at SOFREP???? its a SEAL playhouse and they're selling books and other things like its candy land.
last but not least is the fact that SOCOM is leveraging all kinds of assets from all the services and they are bigger by themselves than many foreign militaries.
and that doesn't even begin to look at their budget which could probably support the US Army's GCV AND the USMC's AAV upgrade with alot left over for other essential items.
SOCOM in general and SEALs in particular need to get pulled back