![]() Video from a SEAL’s helmet camera, included in the trove of materials, shows the barely conscious captive - a teenage Islamic State fighter so thin that his watch slid easily up and down his arm - being brought in to the platoon one day in May 2017. Chief Gallagher was acquitted by a military jury in July of all but a single relatively minor charge, and was cleared of all punishment in November by Mr. Platoon members said they saw Chief Gallagher shoot civilians and fatally stab a wounded captive with a hunting knife. Together with the dozens of hours of recorded interviews, they provide revealing insights into the men of the platoon, who have never spoken publicly about the case, and the leader they turned in. ![]() The trove of materials also includes thousands of text messages the SEALs sent one another about the events and the prosecution of Chief Gallagher. Not only did they have to relive wrenching events and describe grisly scenes, they had to break a powerful unwritten code of silence in the SEALs, one of the nation’s most elite commando forces. Though combat in Iraq barely fazed the SEALs, sitting down to tell Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents about what they had seen their platoon chief do during a 2017 deployment in Iraq was excruciating for them. Trump’s portrayal of him at a recent political rally in Florida as one of “our great fighters.” Such dire descriptions of Chief Gallagher, who had eight combat deployments and sometimes went by the nickname Blade, are in marked contrast to Mr. ![]() with killing anybody that was moving,” Special Operator First Class Corey Scott, a medic in the platoon, told the investigators. “The guy was toxic,” Special Operator First Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, said in a separate interview. “The guy is freaking evil,” Special Operator Miller told investigators. ![]() They offer the first opportunity outside the courtroom to hear directly from the men of Alpha platoon, SEAL Team 7, whose blistering testimony about their platoon chief was dismissed by President Trump when he upended the military code of justice to protect Chief Gallagher from the punishment. ![]()
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