In the wake of a series of scandals dogging California-based SEAL Team 7, the entire senior leadership team was relieved of duty on Friday morning.
Rear Adm. Collin Green fired the team’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Edward James Mason, executive officer Lt. Cmdr. Luke Hong Il Im, and their top enlisted adviser, Command Master Chief Hugh Chance Spangler, due to what officials termed “a loss of confidence that resulted from leadership failures that caused a breakdown of good order and discipline within two subordinate units while deployed to combat zones.”WARCOM spokeswoman Capt. Tamara Lawrence told Navy Times that officials will not identify the triad who will replace the three leaders “due to the nature of their work, for their safety, for the safety of their teammates and families, and the safety of current and future missions.”
The statements by Lawrence and other SEAL officials to Navy Times never implicated the triad for any personal misconduct but instead point a spotlight at alleged wrongdoing by their subordinate units.
Lawrence won’t identify the two units tied to the alleged misbehavior, but they might be SEAL Team 7′s Foxtrot platoon and another detachment that was sent to Yemen.Following a boozy July 4th party in Iraq, Special Operations Command superiors booted Foxtrot back to Naval Base Coronado, with ongoing investigations for sexual assault, fraternization and other allegations of misconduct trailing in their wake.
Citing the clandestine nature of the counter-terrorism work there, officials have been quieter about the Yemen unit.Another master chief from that detachment was relieved of his position on the team but he won’t be named by WARCOM because he’s not in a leadership triad.
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