Why this book:  Every active or retired SEAL I know who’s read ALPHA told me that they believed every SEAL should read this book. That’s  a good enough recommendation for me.   I’ll be leading a discussion of this book among (mostly retired) SEALs in the near future, to see what we think about it. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: SEAL Chief Eddie Gallagher came into ALPHA platoon with a strong reputation in SEAL Team 7 and prepared his platoon to go into one of the most demanding and dangerous areas in their forthcoming deployment to Iraq.  During that deployment, Chief Gallagher seemed to go off the rails and not only was not leading his platoon well, he was committing acts that his platoon-mates saw were contrary to the Laws of Armed Conflict and the Navy SEAL Ethos they’d sworn to uphold.  ALPHA tells the story from the perspective of many of the SEALs in that platoon, to include recounting specific criminal behavior they observed, how the platoon struggled with what to do about it, the return of the platoon from deployment, the trial and the media carnival around it, the impact of President Trump’s support for Gallagher,  the bungling by the Navy of the prosecution, and the potential impact of it all on the Navy SEAL culture.

My impressions: Powerful.  Disturbing. Well written, well researched. I felt Philipps did a good job reporting what his research and interviews revealed to him.  For most of the first part of ALPHA, he makes an effort to be objective about Chief Gallagher, but by the end of the book, he does not hide his disdain for Gallagher and what he’d done. 

The book has credibility to me.  I’ve heard the Leading Petty Officer Craig Miller address a group of SEAL NCOs about his challenges and experiences being Gallagher’s number 2 in that platoon – he was credible and his story is moving.  It is a cautionary tale for young SEALs.  For those of us who were in the Teams in the past, it is disturbing.  We have to ask ourselves whether we could have done more to quell the “pirate” culture that has always been there, and which arguably allowed Eddie Gallagher to be promoted and thrive – until a few guys stood up to him and called him out.  It is a story of moral courage versus self-protection, and going along to get along.

Many of the books by and about SEALs highlight the dramatic and the heroic, and paint a picture of SEALs as America’s playful young warrior-heroes, but do not show much of the dark side. This one does.  But it also shows bright young men struggling with their consciences and struggling to balance their loyalty to each other, their team, their chain of command, with their personal values and their consciences.  

AlLPHA starts out in Coronado where SEAL Team 7 Alpha platoon is training and getting ready to deploy.  Gallagher is a highly regarded chief and is doing a good job motivating his platoon.  A few things pop up in that pre-deployment window that the boys find odd or a bit disturbing, but nothing that they are overly concerned about.  That changes when they get in-country (Iraq).

ALPHA takes us through the entire deployment and the interviews the author had with many of the platoon members chronicle Gallaghers neglect of his responsibilities as Platoon Chief and how he repeatedly put himself into shooter roles that are not appropriate for the Platoon Chief, but which he hoped would garner him an opportunity to get an award for valor and be the “war hero” he so wanted to be.    His platoon mates noted that he repeatedly put the platoon in unnecessary danger without authorization, in order to get closer to the fighting – and in one case, refused to call medevac in for a wounded platoon member, because it would reveal that he had taken them into an unauthorized area – risking the life of that member (he did recover.)

Gallagher spent a good part of the deployment in a sniper hide, shooting at targets his men didn’t see, and claiming many kills. This is not the role of a Platoon Chief;  his Leading Petty Officer, SO1 Craig Miller had to step up and assume as much of the Platoon Chief responsibility as he could, though he was often over-ruled by Gallagher.   The many shots Gallagher took from his sniper hide, and his claimed kills (unseen by anyone else) got to be a joke in the platoon, until some of his guys saw him shooting civilians.  Though no one claimed to have seen him pull the trigger,  they heard the shot from where he was, and saw what were to them clearly civilians fall – in at least two cases specifically.  When guys realized he was shooting at non-combatants, other Alpha platoon snipers in different hide sites tried to find his potential targets and protect them by shooting warning shots before Gallagher could shoot them.  The incident for which he went to trial,  killing with a knife a young Iraqi POW, was described in great detail based on interviews and accounts given to to the author and to NCIS, 

The platoon finally began to stand up to their Platoon Chief,  a very difficult step in a SEAL Platoon.  The Leading Petty Officer Craig Miller had already assumed much of the leadership in the platoon, while Gallagher had stepped out of his Platoon Chief role to engage in shooting ISIS.  When the platoon rebelled, Miller continued that leadership.  Where were the Platoon officers?  Miller and others had gone to the officer leadership about Gallagher, and they said they would take care of it.  But they didn’t – they looked the other way.   

The later part of ALPHA describes how, after ALPHA platoon returned to the states,  the platoon agreed they had to stick together to make sure Gallagher would be held accountable for his criminal actions and would not lead SEALs again.   When the officers immediately over them did not take action, the platoon NCOs decided to go over their head to more senior officers, who then got engaged and brought in NCIS.  And ALPHA describes their investigation, their challenges, their mistakes. 

When it got to court, only four of the Alpha platoon SEALs were willing to testify to what they’d agreed to.  Much of the eyewitness evidence of Gallagher plunging a knife into the prisoner was not recounted in the testimony in court for a number of reasons –  a couple of the key witnesses followed their attorney’s advice and wouldn’t repeat what they’d said earlier, or those accounts were not permitted in court for other reasons.  Many of the original group who had agreed to go to the authorities about Gallagher’s actions ended up hiring the same attorney who advised them to back away from their original statements and protect themselves – which was a good part of why Gallagher was acquitted of pre-meditated murder and manslaughter.  Philipps clearly admired the moral courage of the SEALs who elected to tell their stories in court, unadulterated by advice from an attorney to hedge and not remember.

The book concludes with Gallagher’s acquittal of all but the one charge of posing with a dead enemy, and him basking in the glory of being a darling of Fox News, President Trump’s description of him as a hero and martyr to politically correct and wimpy military leaders.  Gallagher and his wife Andrea referred to those who had testified against him as “pussies” seeking revenge on a chief that pushed them hard in combat.  The platoon itself fractured along the lines of those who stood up for what they believed in in court, and those who bailed from their earlier commitment in order to protect themselves. 

ALPHA describes a SEAL deployment and what SEALs were doing in Iraq, dealing with the Rules of Engagement, the risks and the type of work they were doing, the challenges and advantages of working with the Iraqi army.  The reader gets a sense for the men in the SEAL platoon, their personal stories,  their attitudes and some of the dynamics within a SEAL platoon, which was upset when their Platoon Chief went rogue.  There are heroes here, there are guys who were conflicted, who showed moral weakness if not cowardice under pressure, and there were a couple of villains – Gallagher in particular, and the officers above him who refused to step in when they were told of his behavior.   Philipps addresses the still-uncertain impact of the whole highly publicized event on the SEAL culture, and the  ongoing efforts of senior SEAL officers to undermine the “pirate” culture which arguably created Eddie Gallagher, and which still supports him.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in getting past the “SEALs-as-heroic-super-commandos” narrative to better understand SEALs as men doing a job they are well-trained to do – as the SEAL Ethos says – “common citizens with an uncommon desire to succeed” – and some of the moral and physical challenges they face.