Elite Navy SEALs raid Osama Bin Laden’s compound in a scene from the motion picture “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to assassinate Osama bin Laden have been helping EA games with inside information to make EA’s latest shoot-em-up “Medal of Honor: Warfighter.” The US military is not amused.

Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Also, the likelihood of them being promoted is now very slim.

The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Admiral Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not go into specifics:

We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy.

He said the punishments metered out will “send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability.”

Associated Press reported that:

The two main complaints against the SEALs were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official. The official was briefed about the case but was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

SEALs, including some of those involved in the bin Laden raid of May 2011, have been uncharacteristically prominent in the news this year.

Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but later retired from the SEALs, wrote a firsthand account under the pseudonym Mark Owen, but he landed in hot water with the Pentagon even before it was published in September. The Pentagon accused him of disclosing classified information in violation of the nondisclosure agreements he had signed as a SEAL. He disputes the charge.

SEALs, both active duty and retired, possess highly sensitive information about tactics and techniques that are central to the success of their secret and often dangerous missions overseas. So it’s kind of obvious why they have to sign nondisclosure agreements when they enter service and when they leave, and it is why the Pentagon seeks to enforce such written agreements. You know, you don’t want the terrorists getting an inside scope into army tactics from a paperpack they can pick up at the airport.

[Source: USA Today]