Navy Seals who have always thought him a phony, and other things:

The Lesson of Eric Greitens, and the Navy SEALs Who Tried to Warn Us

The charges facing the embattled governor of Missouri have stunned voters, but in the tight-knit Naval Special Warfare community, Greitens has been a divisive figure for years.

By Phil Klay @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, May 17, 2018

[....]The animus some seals felt toward Greitens flared in 2015, after he resigned from his position at The Mission Continues and announced his candidacy for governor in the Missouri Republican primary. The Greitens whom the seals knew had been a lifelong Democrat. He had even attended the 2008 Democratic National Convention with the former Missouri governor Bob Holden. Now he was running ads touting his conservative credentials and his seal background.

In one campaign ad, Greitens fires an assault rifle at a target that then explodes, and the words “Conservative. Navy seal” appear next to his face. His campaign also sought to raise money selling bumper stickers that read, “isis Hunting Permit,” bragging, “Liberals will go crazy when they see these.” The way these gimmicks seemed to exaggerate Greitens’s background as a seal frustrated some members of the community.

“The guys who are the reason the seals are so respected are the guys on the front lines,” one former officer said. “Their families are suffering; sometimes they develop P.T.S.D., or traumatic brain injuries.” That Greitens launched his political career on the back of those types of sacrifices struck many seals as dishonest [....]