Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALS
Author: David Phillips
Publisher: Crown Books, 2022. 480 pages.
Reviewer: Victor Hansen | January 2024
What happens when a sociopath joins an elite military unit and then leads that team into battle? That question is at the heart of David Phillips book, Alpha, a story about former Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher. The author tells the story of Gallagher’s life as the leader of a Navy Seal unit preparing to deploy to Iraq to fight ISIS. The book then recounts what Gallagher’s unit did in Iraq, culminating with Gallagher’s killing of an injured and unarmed ISIS fighter under his watch, and the consequences that followed.
In many ways, this story, while compelling, hardly seems the subject of a book review in a legal journal. Much of the book focuses on the conduct of Gallagher as a Navy Seal and as a team leader and how the men under his authority dealt with his increasingly irrational, erratic, and, in some cases, illegal behavior. Only in the last third of the book does the author recount the details of the military court-martial that ultimately failed to hold Gallagher accountable for the killing of the unarmed prisoner. The author’s purpose seems clearly to set the record straight about Eddie Gallagher and debunk any narrative that he is a decorated war hero who was persecuted by an overly politicized Navy leadership. The book achieves that goal. Phillips thoroughly researched the events he describes, and he does a masterful job recounting some of the things that Gallagher and his Seal unit did in Iraq. That alone makes the book a good read and an important contribution to the public’s understanding of how morally fraught wars are.
But from a legal perspective, there is more. Just a few chapters into the book, it becomes readily apparent that Eddie Gallagher is not the person he portrays to the world. He is dark and narcissistic. He is a sociopath. That reality is disconcerting as it is, but it is much worse when we see that he is placed in a key leadership position within his unit and give responsibility for the lives and well-being of other Navy Seals in his team.
By necessity, military organizations are intended to be very structured, with a clear chain of command and strict discipline. To some degree, that ethos of strict discipline is intended to prevent the Eddie Gallaghers of the world from running amuck in a military organization. But the Navy Seal teams portrayed in the book do not adhere to that traditional model. Rank structure is more ambiguous and those with the most authority in a unit are not necessarily the most senior ranking members. Similarly, rigid discipline, strict adherence to standards, and obedience to orders do not seem to be a significant part of this Navy Seal team’s ethos. The explanation for the departure from traditional military organization and ethos was justified by these Seal units because of their unique mission. These are the most elite special forces units, given the most challenging missions where initiative, aggressiveness, and adaptability are valued above the military ethos of discipline and good order. Gallagher and others like him are characterized as pirates. Eddie Gallagher expertly manipulated this pirate mentality and, as depicted in the book, time and time again pursued his narcissistic urges without ever being held to account by members of his own unit or, ultimately, the Navy leadership (p.
This depiction of a pirate who consistently flouted the law, established rules, traditions, and procedures intended to ensure order and discipline was frustrating and upsetting to read about. The reader will be constantly looking for anyone in this narrative to step up and put a stop to Gallagher’s dangerous and lawless behavior. Unfortunately, no one did until after the unit returned from Iraq and after much of the damage had already been done. And even then, those that ultimately did step up were stonewalled and ignored when they tried to report Gallagher’s crimes.
The author covers the lead up to the trial and the actual court-martial of Gallagher in some detail. A reader may wonder why Gallagher was tried in a military court-martial as opposed to some other forum for his alleged crimes. That decision was not however, unusual. It is the policy of the United States and many other countries to prosecute their own solders who are alleged to commit war crimes in their own domestic courts. While critics may claim that such an approach is intended to allow counties to shield their own forces from accountability, the reality is more nuanced. The United States military has a well-established history of holding at least lower-ranking service members accountable for their battlefield misconduct. The real challenge that the prosecution faced in this case was the absence of physical evidence or other objective facts that proved Gallagher had killed the prisoner. Absent that evidence, the prosecution had to rely on witnesses who were steeped in the Navy Seal tribal culture of protecting their own. The book accurately and thoroughly describes all of this.
For me, this book was a reaffirmation and reminder of why military order and discipline exist. Rules matter and a strong legal structure coupled with a military chain of command that is committed to enforcing and abiding by those rules is an essential part of any military unit, perhaps even more so in units that are tasked with the most dangerous missions. Without that strong sense of order and discipline, the Eddie Gallagher’s of the world can almost single-handedly destroy even the most elite units and turn them into a lawless band of thugs.
Victor Hansen is a Professor of Law at New England Law Boston.
