Are the SEALs Overexposed?

The short answer is obviously "yes," if former SEAL officer Leif Babin's recent Wall Street Journal op-ed is generally representative of the SEAL community.

However, this question was raised more recently at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association, during which retired Lieutenant General James Vaught reportedly told SOCOM commander Admiral Bill McRaven:

"[I]f you keep publishing how you do this, the other guy's going to be there ready for you, and you're going to fly in and he's going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your SEALs.  Now, watch it happen.  Mark my words.  Get the hell out of the media."

Overexposure of SEAL TTP's is certainly legitimate concern, and I have nothing but the highest respect for LTG (ret.) Vaught, who was the Delta Force commander during the failed mission to rescue the American hostages in Tehran in 1979, a.k.a. Operation Eagle Claw.  However, I also have supreme confidence that this consideration is front and center in Admiral McRaven's thinking and that he would never do anything to put special operators at risk. 

Ironically, Vaught reportedly said "Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam from the hole, we didn't say one damn word about it.  We turned him over to the local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole, and he did so.  And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut."  Umm, Sir, you were long-retired by 2003, and the actual commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force that captured Saddam was . . . then-Rear Admiral Bill McRaven!