Assuming you, like most of our dear readers, are a lily-livered sissy who has never made it through a "Hell Night" or advanced Navy SEAL training, here are a couple of things you may not know.
1. There are former Navy SEALs who teach classes on how to be like a Navy SEAL, like this guy:
2. There are other people who are not Navy SEALs who offer similar training, which severely pisses off the real SEALs like that guy.
The man in the video, Don Shipley, runs a business called Extreme SEAL Experience in Virginia and the Tampa Bay area. Now, the Tampa Tribune reports, Tampa attorney Gene Odom has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Shipley, claiming that people who pretend to be former SEALs are hurting the business and using the SEAL logo, a trident, without permission.
The target of the lawsuit is Barry "Bear" Silverman and his Broward County business, Tactical Deterrence. The suit claims that attendance at Shipley's hard-core training camps has decreased since people like Silverman, who is not listed in military records as having completed SEAL training, set up shop.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear a challenge to the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it illegal for someone to "falsely represent himself or herself" as a decorated soldier, according to the Tribune.
Odom is seeking "a multi-million punitive damages award from a jury."
There's not much of a web presence for Tactical Deterrence, though we'd like to speak with Silverman to find out about this extreme brand of training and learn more about how the two competing courses differ. The Florida Division of Corporations does not list a company by that name owned by Silverman. The website pownetwork.org lists Silverman as a "phony" and says his website is shootinstructor.com, which currently leads to an empty redirect page. It says he is "known to wear SEAL trident" and provides the photo at right.
Stefan Kamph: Twitter | Facebook | Email
The Pulp on Twitter | New Times on Facebook
