The two Navy SEALS lost during operations near the coast of Yemen have not been found. Centcom announces their status changed to deceased.
CENTCOM – TAMPA, Fla. – We regret to announce that after a 10-day exhaustive search, our two missing U.S. Navy SEALs have not been located and their status has been changed to deceased. The search and rescue operation for the two Navy SEALs reported missing during the boarding of an illicit dhow carrying Iranian advanced conventional weapons Jan. 11 concluded and we are now conducting recovery operations.
During this expansive search operation, airborne and naval platforms from the U.S., Japan, and Spain continuously searched more than 21,000 square miles to locate our missing teammates. Search assistance was also provided by Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, the U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Command, University of San Diego – Scripts Institute of Oceanography, and the Office of Naval Research – Oceanographic Support. Out of respect for the families, no further information will be released at this time.
“We mourn the loss of our two Naval Special Warfare warriors, and we will forever honor their sacrifice and example. Our prayers are with the SEALs’ families, friends, the U.S. Navy, and the entire Special Operations community during this time,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, USCENTCOM Commander. (LINK)
The two Special Warfare Operators have been identified as Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers and Navy Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram.
NAVY – On the evening of Jan. 11, Chambers and Ingram, both assigned to a West Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit, were reported missing at sea while they were conducting a night-time seizure of a vessel illegally transporting advanced lethal aid from Iran to resupply Houthi forces in Yemen.
“We extend our condolences to Chris and Gage’s families, friends, and teammates during this incredibly challenging time. They were exceptional warriors, cherished teammates, and dear friends to many within the Naval Special Warfare community,” said Capt. Blake L. Chaney, commander, Naval Special Warfare Group 1.
Chambers enlisted in the Navy on May 17, 2012, and graduated from boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, Ill., in July 2012. He served with West Coast-based SEAL units since graduating from SEAL qualification training in Coronado, Calif., in 2014. His awards and decorations include the Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat “C,” three Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medals, Army Achievement Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, and other personal and unit awards.
Ingram enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 25, 2019, and graduated from boot camp at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, Ill., in November 2019. Ingram served with West Coast-based SEAL units since graduating from SEAL qualification training in Coronado, Calif., in 2021. His awards and decorations include various personal and unit awards.
“Chris and Gage selflessly served their country with unwavering professionalism and exceptional capabilities,” said Chaney. “This loss is devastating for NSW, our families, the special operations community, and across the nation.”
The incident remains under investigation. Naval Special Warfare’s top priority is to respect the families’ privacy while providing unwavering support to them, their loved ones. (link)
I am deeply saddened at the loss of these two warriors. I am also troubled knowing that our leaders can often be callous and reckless with the lives of our men.
Has anyone questioned HOW this could happen? WHERE are the details and proximate cause of how they died which has nothing to do with mission classification, now published to the entire globe. These men are/were trained DEVGRU and mastery of swimming and SCUBA skills and much more is must be thoroughly demonstrated. Much of the water training and amphibious assault skills are developed then tested in waters off Coronado as cold as 55 deg. with a mile swim – and elsewhere. Failure means NO TRIDENT awarded, period. One more suspicious event that also does not compute. Anyone else think to question this… or is it once again like “Oh well, this is where we live now“. This is BS.
Where did you get info they were DEVGRU at? I haven’t seen that anywhere.
Even amongst SEALS, very few are on that team.
Exactly. Tons of pins and tabs out there, but not many operating in those teams.
DEVGRU takes the same training a ST6 to get that Trident. Any distinction is in the selection process onto ST6 itself. Also a fact.
And that process is the brutal one that nearly no one passes.
DEVGRU IS SEAL TEAM 6. Based out of Dam Neck, Virginia.
All SEALS who pass SEAL training and assigned to any team are awarded Tridents.
And THOSE are the facts.
But where did you get the info those guys were DEVGRU? Assume?
The other thing is the article stated they were ‘West’ Coast.
Team 6 used to based out of Virginia.
Still do.
Now you’re getting into classified stuff.
The common nomenclature is described in Wikipedia. Also not hard to figure out if one has access to the renamed Joint base in Norfolk area
Media posts had already listed the VBSS as a special purpose mission.
A reasonable deduction.
ST6, of course, is referred to in Marcinko’s book. I met some of the warriors whose callsigns are in that book. Was surprised to learn how many SEALs were also Phi Beta Kappas..etc. These are truly unique human beings.
Worked around them once, mostly SF though.
All direct action are special purpose.
The guy above though was spouting off about DEVGRU as something different than ST6 and conflating standard training with something special. And then spouting off about ‘facts’ when it’s pretty clear that he assumes and thinks he knows.
Wannabes
I got ya.
I just think he was just exercising some license in complaining that we are not being told the whole story – without (he himself) filling in the blanks. The BS claim kinda maps back to that. We already know that. So I didn’t take it any further.
Keep on it BK. Much bigger fish to fry.
I agree with YOU. I read the Navy Seals were killed in a shoot out. Now, do you think those Navy Seals were going to last that long
lost at sea? Our Government is covering something up. We shouldn’t have been in that area. This is BS….
They were not killed in a shootout. One of the sailors fell from a boarding ladder and the other jumped in to save him. They both were kitted up for a hostile boarding.
God bless both of these men and their families and fellow soldiers
It took a while for the truth to come out about Pat Tillman’s death as well
Government is good at covering up stuff…
If you look up Mike Glover on YouTube he walks thru the most likely scenario that happened with these men. Glover was a Sgt Major Green beret and worked the CIA and knows of what he speaks
They also carry emergency beacons and infrared identifiers and also wear flotation devices. I just don’t understand how they cannot be found. Something is fishy.
Their full kit is very heavy. Waves swept the first SEAL off the boarding ladder the second jumped in after him per SEAL protocol. Their kits are so heavy they were probably dragged under water from the weight and drowned. They have flotation devices, but they can be hard to activate under all the weapons, ammo, armor and other items in their kits. So I have read anyway. The seas were very heavy and waves breaking making it even harder to swim regardless of their physical condition and experience.
Kits used for water-borne operations have a quick release feature for that very predicament. The press release stated that this boarding was supported by a helo and drone, and yet the men were lost at sea. There can be no doubt that all the operators had either an EPIRB or some other type of personal locator beacon that automatically activates in water. The official story is BS. My belief is that the bodies could not be returned to the families due to trauma wounds, which would have to be explained during an election year.
Sound very correct. Everything will be judged through the election year lens. With the Afghan debacle they’re on pins and needles
Sounds like impossible conditions for a mission success.
Have read that Seals do a 6 mile ocean swim parallel to the shore.
Got it from here.
https://www.military.com/military-fitness/navy-special-operations/navy-seal-rumor-buster
Endless wars dude.
They hate us
.
Great response.
Way past time for our NCO Vets to lead to protect the Constitution.
Armed Civilian Patriots will back them up.
They died so POTATUS could continue to sniff little girls and his string pullers could continue to steal property and liberty from the American people.
No wonder the DOD can’t meet recruitment levels.
You don’t send guys out in rough weather to board a ship. You sink it and make an example out of its dead crew.
Not a peep out of FJB’s decrepit mouth about 2 more dead under his watch. Bet they don’t toddle him off to Dove AirForce base if the navy ever recovers their bodies. Karma, please get busy & focus on FJB.
My heart goes out to these gold star families. They don’t deserve this callous & arrogant CiC.
Vince Foster did not commit suicide.
Jeffrey Epstein did not commit suicide.
MAObama’s chef did not drown accidentally.
And these Navy SEALS did not drown accidentally.
They died in some other way following orders to do something which, if known, would be highly deleterious to The Manchurian Marionette.
I trust nothing from these traitors!
YOU are so right. You said the truth.
Leave American Warriors out of your miscreant missives….disgusting and plain wrong to say. We do no know.
They now admit they were KIA.
Then why is it being called an incident rather than combat action?
Because of the way team Obiden runs things – we are not in a declared war.
Like Ukraine…just another Cluster ***** of dissembling, confused politics purposed for ulterior motives. Sundance already shed light on this a while ago – a Palestinian state.
Welcome back from outer space, Dr. Smith! We thought you were dead!
SEALS have always been The Expendables.
I so don’t buy that. They might be one of the tips of the spear, but expendable they aren’t. Our special operators perform a lot of dark ops functions off record and in bad guy land. Risk is part of their daily affairs. I hope and pray nothing nefarious here, but these guys died, if true, doing what they trained to do. They’re the best at their function, but even the best don’t come home from high risk affairs.
Let’s thank the Lord for the lives they lived as they chose, for something they loved.
John Alexander Hottel III was killed in Vietnam in 1968. He wrote his own epitaph before he died. Beautiful piece from a true stud and his message was “don’t lament that I died for my country, be thankful that I LIVED for my country.”
A link to the story of MAJ Hottel’s eulogy:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/self-authored-eulogy-maj-j-alex-hottell-usma-64-who-gave-pete-kilner
+1. Another example of the “commentary” which has deteriorated here over the past 3+ years. Absent facts, reality, discernment.
Guilty too. My initial post had some inaccuracies that the follow on corrected.
One of my junior year English projects in college was to review that eulogy for tone. It’s an amazing story written by an incredible guy. He was a Rhodes scholar before it turned stupid.
Special operators of all armed services are very, very expensive to train and maintain.
No commander would wantonly expend them without trying to plan and make effort for them to be successful to return alive.
Difficult, time consuming and expensive to replace even one.
And they are, at minimum, strategic level assets. There is no Seal team or Delta team operating at below a 3 star command level. They aren’t just falling out of the trees.
Really….Then how did all those Seal Team members die in that helicopter crash under the Muslim Obama’s reign?
One of my very good friends was flying that MH47. That single incident changed how we deploy the teams now. Never will we place that many special operators on a single flight.
Well, to be fair the government has always considered any service member expendable!
So sad. Nice looking young men. I don’t believe the story we are being told. Something smells rotten in Denmark.
“reported missing during the boarding ” were they captured?
I hope not, if they were we will never know. Those little pirate boats of the “Yemen Navy” seem to be everywhere over there.
I feel for their families, hard when you can’t trust the gov’t to tell the truth. They will spend their days longing that one day their loved ones will walk in the door.
In light of this news, I feel compelled to share this prayer.
Eternal Father,
I offer Thee the most Precious Body and Blood of Thy Devine Son, Jesus, in union with all the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinner in the Universal Church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you. Please save a dying soul from hell.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Firefly Infrared Beacons
Mustang Personal Life Vest system
Satellite & AWACS Fixed Wing Overwatch
Global Geolocators
No where to be found huh?
What a load of crap!
Forgot to add CSAR (Combat Search & Rescue) and/or QRF (Quick Reaction Force) on Hot Readiness for every SOCOM mission for this exact purpose.
I have no words. So very sorry for these Seals’ families. May God have mercy and comfort them.
I have two sons in the service. All I can do is pray.
I have one convinced in following my route and can’t tell you how many times I’ve blasted him for lack of thinking.
Maybe this will serve a purpose for him.
Trump’s America.
* crickets from the MDM-MSM *
/sarc
Hardly believable.
In other news- Sec of Defense hasn’t been seen in a month . What do they declare him?
And that’s a tough hide.
Fair winds and following seas.
May God’s love fill the hearts of family and friends and His Peace surround them all and comfort them.
Petty Officer’s Chambers and Ingram:
Bravo Zulu , 🔔🔔 departing. RIP
God bless and comfort their families.
Every service man or woman, counts. Every loss, matters.
Old Salt, CDR, SC, USNR-R
I call B.S. !
SEALS basically don’t drown.
Plus they carry state of the art communications equipment.
They would also likely have inflation devices.
I’m a Navy Vet and that’s about all I can say about this.
God Bless !
Right?? Wouldn’t they have a locator emergency beacon?
They were doing a vessel interdict, board, search and seize mission. They were operating at night and were kitted for a gun fight, not a swim
Yes they can – and have.
These warriors perform inherently dangerous stuff.
God bless them and their families and forgive this lawless regime, as we are instructed by our Lord.
Difficult as that may seem.
Possibly an ambush. A target was created that they knew Biden and others would want to go after for a trophy.
More likely they filed, or were about to file, whistleblower complaints against the DoD. (sigh)
BTW, these illiterate clowns at CENTCOM can’t even get the basic facts right in their story. They acknowledge help from “University of San Diego – Scripts Institute of Oceanography”. Scripps (not Scripts) Institution (not Institute) of Oceanography is part of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), a major public university, not of the University of San Diego. The University of San Diego is a private Catholic institution, having nothing to do with UCSD.
Ouch
May their souls be with God and their families be comforted by His grace in their time of grief.
From your discussion, above, I may have missed something…is there no longer an Navy SWO Admiral making a statement mourning their loss. Irish Flynn was the first, if I remember correctly. I have very interesting memories of a group of Marine Force Recon and Navy UDT, summer of ’66 at Little Creek, taking a “break” in the “Beer Garden” every afternoon. My wife’s oldest cousin was a Navy Seal in Vietnam in the 1960s; insertion and extraction without the enemy even knowing. Until Biden, SWOs names and teams were never disclosed, their anonymity being of the utmost importance to the highest levels of US military command.
Just my memories and thoughts…what a terrible tragedy.
In the USN, I have only seen the term “SWO” refer to surface warfare officer aka blackshoe aka ship driver. I get since my day they created the SO/SB enlisted ratings so that might be different in some places. SpecWar/NSW I think is the correct term (also in USN “special operations” refers to EOD/salvage/diving community).
I thought I read these guys were assigned to 26th MEU(SOC). Life at sea is hard and many things can kill you. That’s why we have the Navy Hymn.
9
i despise my govt for the cynicism it requires me to approach today’s current official reporting
10 years ago i of course possessed a healthy cynicism of all things political, but still not to the degree i would question an official govt account of such an event
but today?
for all i know this could’ve been a drug deal gone wrong
Yep, I agree. They probably just filed whistleblower complaints with the DoD inspector general. (sigh)
Serving an illegitimate regime has its costs.
Awful, but these two survived the “get the shot or get out” program in the US military. They continued to serve the current regime.
We must start getting our minds around the reality of the current situation. We’ve spent our whole lives “supporting the troops” but what does that mean when “the troops” continue to serve an illegitimate regime?
Bite your tongue. These men died in service to this country.
FJB but don’t for a moment disparage their names
Don’t even go there…
victims of the industrial war complex elites money machine
Instead of intercepting illegals and drug cartels invading Americas southern border and protecting the homeland they are out to sea on the other side of the world carrying out a dangerous mission where nothing benefits or has to do with the homeland they signed up to protect, nothing
It SICKENS ME.
What did Musk just say???
Young men killing each other who don’t know each other…ordered to do so by old men WHO KNOW EACH OTHER!!!
The fact that this was an accident – matters not – just like someone accidentally getting killed during the commission of a felony.
These deaths are STATE SPONSORED MURDER.
They were murdered by this administration. They’re trained to survive. They’re dead in what may be the early stages of WWIII. I loathe the Biden Administration for what they’re doing and have done to our military.
If you know a ship is carrying Iranian misses headed for a combat zone, you give the crew 20 minutes to get off and then you sink it. You don’t send valuable assets to board it. They knew what was on that ship.
Don’t be surprised when or if their bodies should be found after November. Nothing these criminals say I can trust. I feel now like it’s Vietnam all over again and it’s LBJ, with crackers for brains
Godspeed Gentlemen. Fair winds…
Iam deeply saddened the loss of these tow,
joe Biden must be hold accountable,
God bless them.
I am made deeply sad by the loss of these 2 men. My heart is with the families. My head is with the loss of the 2 was in vain.
did they board the boat or did they fall into the sea? Was the boat boarded and contents and crew neutralized,Did the targeted boat capture the 2 soldiers or did the Houtis recover the bodies ?All I know from everything I’ve read is that the soldiers disappeared nothing about the outcome of the mission they were sent on.
RIP brave warriors.
I Have A question, were they not wearing EPIRB’s
G od speed gentlemen, G od speed.
I just hope they are not POW’s in the hands of demonic thugs.
May they rest in peace.
Doesn’t it make sense for them to wear some type of location device that they can activate when needed?
Never send a man where you can send a bullet. Get those murderdrones built and include 5 pounds of ‘boom’, if ya can’t shoot em directly via remote then scatter their houthobits to the wind and dont cry about doing it. Technology’s there. Make it so, number one.
God Speed to these young, honorable gentlemen who God has called home.
Just found out that Chris Chambers was from Westfield NH, and he dove in when Gage Ingram got in trouble. Via WMUR news in NH.
My sincere condolences to the families.