'SEAL Team 6' Chief Demystifies Somalia

'SEAL Team 6' Chief Demystifies Somalia

[WORLD REPORT: Libya, Somalia and the Shift Toward Special Operations Forces]

That code of silence, however, is becoming harder to maintain for his former unit, the ultra secret Navy Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU, more commonly known by its Hollywood title, "SEAL Team Six."

Any military organization wishes to portray itself as the best and most desirable, cheap nfl jerseys not in the least to get top missions, secure the most funding and attract the best applicants to its selection process. However a string of movies, books and newspaper articles perhaps has done as much harm to the unit's reputation as it has bolstered it.

"The stereotype can be dangerous," says Cooper, who began in cheap nfl jerseys special operations in the larger SEAL force on Team 2 before entering the elite DEVGRU, where he spent the bulk of his 25 year career. He retired in 2012 as one of only 12 to become the unit's command master chief, the highest enlisted rank.

Cooper is concerned about a culture at the CIA, Department of Defense and at offices of elected officials where the threat of leaks can define covert operations before they have wholesale jerseys even begun.

He participated in and later oversaw the high profile missions that inspired such pop culture blockbusters as "Zero Dark Thirty," a reference that causes cheap jerseys the former operator to grimace slightly.

"I don't think it's an accurate portrayal," says Cooper, who has subsequently traded tactical gear for a business suit in his new role as president of the Navy SEAL Foundation.

He offers the film "Captain Phillips," as an example, which depicts a unit of flawless operators who serve as quite literal shadow warriors, never exposing themselves long enough for the audience to get a clear image of any of their faces. The film breathes life into what government sources have leaked about the incident: At least three DEVGRU snipers set up on the fantail of the USS Bainbridge wholesale nfl jerseys and, in rocking seas, simultaneously shot and killed the three remaining Somali pirates holding hostage the real Captain Richard Phillips in a lifeboat. The team then packs up its gear and disappears back into the darkness shortly before the closing credits.

[REVIEW: 'Captain Phillips,' a Tale of Two Captains]

"One of the best snipers I know, he was on the back of that fantail," says Cooper. "He is a guy you might not even know is a Navy SEAL. He's quiet. He's humble. He's in good shape, but he's not muscle bound. He looks just like a normal guy. You wouldn't be able to tell.

"And you wouldn't want to be within a mile or two if he's got a bone to pick with you," he says. "[He's] just a normal guy who is incredibly skilled." In real life, those operators completed an after action report following the mission to critique any shortfalls in their own performance. military arsenal as well as it's best seller image comes from stories like these that become public despite every participants' very specific non disclosure agreement.

From Osama bin Laden's compound to the shores of Somalia, the storied unit's exploits have been splattered across the public sphere yet often miscategorize or outright mislead the true nature of the team's work.

Cooper reveals new behind the scenes details of these recent operations in an attempt to clear the record.

In early October 2013, a team of sea borne operators from DEVGRU crept ashore at the Somali town of Baraawe. Their mission: to capture and extract an elusive extremist leader known as Ikrima in the dead of night from his al Shabab stronghold.

DEVGRU has operated in Somalia before. Reports of this mission say the team came under unexpected heavy fire after a lone guard happened to be on a smoke break and sounded the alarm. The commandos then retreated following an intense firefight.

Cooper stresses two points with the failed raid: Contrary to media reports, the commanders did not call off the mission, and the SEALs weren't chased away.

"It wasn't that DEVGRU was repelled. They chose to leave," he says. "They got surprised, because that's what happens."

[READ: 'Ikrima,' Secretive Terrorist Leader, Fights Off SEAL Team 6]

Cooper himself has operated extensively in Somalia in 2005, and again in 2008 and 2010. The most successful raids are conducted at nighttime, he says, when local militiamen are usually passed out after chewing qat a native plant with amphetamine like effects all day.

"When you have 20 guys lying around armed, you have to get them asleep," figuratively and often literally, Cooper says. "That's how you capture them. When they wholesale jerseys wake up with guns, capture is not going to happen."

He stresses that, unlike the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, this was not a "kill or capture mission. It was capture. And there was no way to do that at that point."

DEVGRU also does not function in a way that would allow a faraway commander, or even the highest ranking raider on shore to wholesale nfl jerseys make the ultimate decision to abort the mission. Operators within these units cheap jerseys instead exercise a common decision making process.

"It's all of them, really," says Cooper. "It's that kind of unit where leadership exists in every man out there."

In this situation, the Somalis regrouped and were preparing to launch a counterattack on the SEALs.

"We lost the element of surprise. We know where these guys are, and we'll be back and at time and place of our choosing. They should have left a calling card," Cooper says.

Experts and officials in the realm of intelligence and national security say the creators of the 2012 blockbuster "Zero Dark Thirty" got a lot of things right. (Enough, at least, to prompt a real world Pentagon investigation into a potential breach of classified information.) The portrayal of the DEVGRU operators, however, particularly in the leadup to launching the raid that would cheap nfl jerseys kill Osama bin Laden, was not one of them.

"That was foolish. That was really bad," says Cooper. At the time of the raid he had been promoted to the unit's command master chief, serving as the top enlisted commando and senior advisor to the unit's commanding officers.