Greetings GrootheWanderer:
That’s a somewhat incorrect assumption. Jesse Venture is not a SeAL, he’s only an SeAL organization member. It’s mostly due to an association membership eligibility technicality and has little to do with actually being a Special Operator. I can empathize with Chris Kyle’s position on this.
Jesse Ventura holds a SeAL association membership card simply because he completed BUD/S training. While Jesse’s accomplishment of completing special warfare school is admirable; he chose to remain a storesweeper cruising safely offshore VietNam instead of becoming a Special Operator.
SeAL association eligibility requirements were relatively loosely written as not to exclude their Plank Owner US Navy Special Operators; which inadvertently gave Jesse back door eligibility.
For example, a few of my combat veteran US Coast Guard Port Security Unit Shipmates, Plank Owners, are technically ineligible to wear our coveted transverse seahorses devise. While these Shipmates went to war with me, they did not have the benefit of completing a specific combat warfare school beforehand, which oddly renders them ineligible to wear the devise. (As a Master Chief, I’ve actually outed an ineligible non-combat veteran servicemember who actually attempted to get away with wearing this devise upon their uniform!)
Anyway, Jesse’s brother Jan Janos is a Special Operator, aka SeAL. The SeAL group that outs fake SeALs posted a two-part youtube interview with Jan that fully explains the eligibility technicality of Jesse.
Cheers,
OLA
Jesse is a SEAL according to both Larry Bailey and Naval Special Warfare. Either alone is authoritative. Taken together, there can be no dispute. And as Naval Special Warfare noted at the time, Jesse served in a SEAL reserve unit after he left active duty, so even if one insists that his active duty service does allow him to claim to be a SEAL, that would.