Eddie Gallagher (Navy SEAL)

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on May 29, 1979, Gallagher graduated from Bishop Dwenger High School.[3] He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1999. Gallagher had eight overseas deployments, including service in both the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan.[4][5] He was trained as a medic, a sniper, and an explosives expert. He was the first non-Marine to graduate from the United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper School that he attended. He was attached to a U.S. Marine Corps unit until he enrolled in Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL (BUD/S) class 252 to become a Navy SEAL in 2005.[6]

During his service, he was decorated for valor several times, including two Bronze Stars.[7] He received positive evaluations from his superiors within the SEALs, and served as an instructor in the SEALs BUD/S program for recruits.[8] Gallagher goes by the nickname "Blade".[8]

Gallagher also attracted controversies and investigations, although few formal reprimands. He was the subject in an investigation of the shooting of a young girl in Afghanistan in 2010, but was cleared of wrongdoing in it.[9] He also allegedly tried to run over a Navy police officer with his car in 2014 after being detained at a traffic stop.[8] By 2015, Gallagher had acquired a reputation as someone who was more interested in "fighting terrorists" and less interested in compliance with rules.[8] In his eighth deployment in 2017, Gallagher's aggressive side was seemingly amplified, especially during the Battle for Mosul, wherein the US force mission was intended to be more advisory than direct combat. Gallagher was the subject of a number of reports from his fellow SEAL team members of actions not in keeping with the rules of war, but initially these reports were dismissed by the SEAL command structure.[9] Only after the reports were escalated outside the SEALs were they acted upon and directed to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).[8]

On September 11, 2018, Gallagher was arrested aboard Camp Pendleton and charged with premeditated murder, attempted murder, obstruction of justice, and other offenses.[5] On October 18, Lieutenant Jacob Portier of Gallagher's platoon was also charged with failing to properly escalate to his superiors in the chain of command, as well as destroying evidence.[10][8] Gallagher pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

Awards and decorations

Special Warfare insignia
Bronze Star with "V" device
Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with 1 5/16 inch gold star				Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with "V" device and 2 5/16 gold inch stars				Combat Action Ribbon with 2 5/16 gold inch stars
Navy Presidential Unit Citation				Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation				Army Meritorious Unit Commendation
Navy Good Conduct Medal with 1 silver 3/16 inch star				National Defense Service Medal				Afghanistan Campaign Medal with 2 bronze 3/16 inch stars
Iraq Campaign Medal with 1 bronze 3/16 inch star				Inherent Resolve Campaign Medal with 1 bronze 3/16 inch star				Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal
Global War on Terrorism Service Medal				Navy and Marine Corps Sea Service Deployment Ribbon with 1 silver and 2 bronze 3/16 inch stars				Overseas Service Ribbon
NATO Medal for Afghanistan				Rifle Marksmanship Medal with Expert Device				Pistol Marksmanship Medal with Expert Device
Navy and Marine Corps Parachutist Badge

Gallagher is center, wearing a baseball cap and holding the corpse's hair.

Gallagher was accused of multiple offenses during his final deployment to Iraq and during the Battle for Mosul. The most prominent accusation and the best-attested to was the murder of a prisoner of war, a war crime.[8] Khaled Jamal Abdullah, a captured 17-year-old fighter of the Islamic State (also known as ISIL, ISIS, and Daesh), was being treated by a medic.[11] According to two SEAL witnesses, Gallagher said over the radio "he's mine" and walked up to the medic and Abdullah, and without saying a word killed Abdullah by stabbing him repeatedly with his hunting knife. Gallagher and his commanding officer, Lieutenant Jake Portier, then posed for photographs of them standing over the body with some other nearby SEALs. Gallagher then text messaged a friend in California a picture of himself holding the dead captive's head by the hair with the explanation "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife.”[8][12]

Another accusation was that Gallagher's sniper work during his 2017 deployment became indiscriminate, reckless, and bloodthirsty. He allegedly fired his rifle far more frequently than other snipers;[4] according to testimony, the other snipers in the platoon did not consider him a good sniper, and he took "random shots" into buildings.[1] Other snipers said they witnessed Gallagher taking at least two militarily pointless shots, shooting and killing an unarmed old man in a white robe as well as a young girl walking with other girls. Gallagher allegedly boasted about the large number of people he had killed, claiming he averaged three kills a day over 80 days, including four women.[1] Gallagher also was reportedly known for indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine gun fire with no known enemy force in the region.[8]

A charge of obstruction of justice was brought against Gallagher for alleged witness intimidation. According to the claim, Gallagher allegedly threatened to kill fellow SEALs if they reported his actions.[4] The Navy cited his text messages as attempting to undermine the investigation, with messages sent to "pass the word on those traitors", meaning cooperating witnesses, and to get them blacklisted within the special warfare community.[8][1] This resulted in him being confined in the brig for a time with heavy restrictions on his ability to communicate, although this confinement was later lessened.[4]

Gallagher was also charged with nearly a dozen lesser offenses.[4] Some of these charges, such as flying a drone over a corpse, were dismissed during preliminary hearings.[13]

According to the original Navy prosecutor Chris Czaplak, "Chief Gallagher decided to act like the monster the terrorists accuse us of being. He handed ISIS propaganda manna from heaven. His actions are everything ISIS says we are."[5][4]

The case was considered to be a "difficult"[14] one because the Navy did not begin a formal investigation for nearly a year after the reports were made and by then much of the physical evidence, such as the bodies of those alleged to be killed by Gallagher, were not recoverable.[14] The family of Abdullah, the boy Gallagher allegedly stabbed to death, was contacted by media several years after the event and claimed that they were unaware of the circumstances surrounding their son's death and that they had not been contacted by prosecutors.[11]

The prosecution's case relied largely on eyewitness testimony, which the defense sought to discredit as merely that of spiteful malcontents who disliked Gallagher's gruff leadership style.[5] The defense also said that Gallagher's text messages merely reflected dark comedy in a stressful situation, and that his more outrageous boasts, such as killing twenty people a day, were clearly impossible.[1] Some of the potential witnesses were non-cooperative, citing the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination for being hesitant to testify.[1]

The defense also claimed that the lead NCIS agent slanted witness statements and interviews to be more hostile to Gallagher than warranted in his notes.[15] For the most serious charge of murder of a prisoner, according to the defense, Gallagher merely stabbed a corpse and embellished a story out of misplaced bravado; the prisoner had already died of his wounds.[1] The defense cited two high-ranking Iraqi Army members that the detainee was "barely alive"[1] when he arrived; according to prosecution witnesses, the prisoner's leg injury didn't appear serious to the initial medic who treated the prisoner, and that the medic was surprised the detainee was dead when he returned.[1]

In March 2019, former Navy SEAL and U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas and seventeen other Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to then-Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer asking for Gallagher's pre-trial confinement to be reviewed.[7] On March 30, President Trump intervened and ordered Gallagher transferred to "less restrictive confinement" after complaints from his supporters, particularly commentators on Fox and Friends, about his detainment.[16][17] This was the first time a President directly intervened in an imprisonment conditions matter since President Richard Nixon intervened in favor of Lieutenant William Calley, one of the perpetrators of the My Lai Massacre, by ordering him released from a military brig to house arrest in 1971.[18][19]

In May 2019, defense lawyers accused the prosecution of sending both them and Navy Times reporter Carl Prine an email that included a Web beacon.[14] People who viewed the original email or a forward of this email would likely load the image through their mail-reading program (electronic mail, or e-mail client), which would record where it came from; this allows for imperfect monitoring of who has seen an email, without installing any software. It has been speculated that this image was intended to find leakers violating the judge's gag order, as reporters (including Prine) have repeatedly scooped private documents related to the case.[14] As a result of the spying controversy, the judge ordered Gallagher freed from prison while awaiting trial as a remedy to interference from the prosecution.[20] The judge later ordered that the chief prosecutor, Commander Christopher Czaplak, be dismissed from the case and replaced as a result of the incident.[21][22][23][24]

On May 8, 2019, former Congressman Duncan D. Hunter, a Republican, showed combat video footage from a helmet camera to a group of legislators that he said exonerated Gallagher of one of the charges against him.[25] Hunter told reporters that he intended to ask for a presidential pardon if Gallagher was convicted.[25] According to anonymous administration sources, the Justice Department was reviewing Gallagher's case in preparation for a possible pardon from President Trump.[26] This potential pardon was hotly criticized by a number of commentators and news outlets.[27][19] During a podcast interview on May 28, 2019 Hunter said that he himself had posed for pictures with a dead enemy combatant and that American artillery fire had killed "hundreds" of Iraqi civilians in and around Fallujah.[28]

On June 20, 2019, during Gallagher's trial, one of the platoon medics from Gallagher's team testifying as a prosecution witness said that although Gallagher did stab the ISIS fighter, he did not actually kill him. The medic, Special Operator First Class Corey Scott who testified under an immunity agreement, testified that he himself had killed the wounded prisoner by covering his breathing tube and asphyxiating him.[29] Scott called it a "mercy killing" and argued that the victim would have been tortured by Iraqi personnel due to his connection to the Islamic State.[30]

Prosecutors were taken by surprise by Scott's testimony, since the medic had never given this version of events to them or Navy investigators. This account was also contrary to the statements of at least seven other SEALs[31] as well as Scott's previous statements. Because of the immunity agreement Scott cannot be prosecuted even for admitting publicly that he killed the man, though he could be prosecuted for perjury if the account is proven false.[32]

At the end of November 2019, Gallagher retired from the Navy with full honors, pension, and medical benefits. Following his Navy career, Gallagher began commercial ventures including a clothing line and a nutritional supplement endorsements.[52]