Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs

4.4 stars. A well written, infuriating, thoroughly researched book written by someone with obvious respect for American service persons, and SEALs in particular, which exposes Eddie Gallagher as the mendacious, murderous turd that he at some point became. Also exposed is the bankrupt culture of ‘pirates’ and ‘rule breakers’ who believe rules don’t apply to them in the SEALs and their many wanna be tough admirers. Nowhere is that bankruptcy more clearly revealed than in the celebration of this quote often attributed to Orwell - ‘people sleep peacefully in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf’ with the total omission of the other half of the coin - How the violence is done matters. How we show more fight, how we treat prisoners , how we balance personal and unit loyalty with loyalty to the rule of law and due process - these things matter. They are ignored at our peril. show less

Fabulous book. Really well told by the author with a lot of good research in here. The fact that Eddie got off at the end is unbelievable. What a piece of crap he is. And all the seals who covered for him nauseating. Need to watch the Sean Ryan interview except it’s five hours.