Navy SEAL Historian Veteran Ben Milligan | Mike Drop Ep. 210

About this video

Mike Ritland interviews Ben Milligan, former Navy SEAL and author of ‘By Water Beneath the Walls: The Rise of the Navy SEALs.’ Milligan discusses his decade-long research into SEAL Team history, explaining how the SEALs emerged by filling gaps left by other military units’ failures. He details his archival research methods, shares insights on leadership literature, and explains how Special Forces mission drift—particularly Green Berets shifting from raiding operations to counterinsurgency—created the operational space that allowed the SEAL Teams to develop their unique role.

Key takeaways

• Milligan’s thesis is that SEAL Teams exist because of gaps created when Army, Marine Corps, and CIA units were repeatedly created and disbanded, or drifted from their core missions
• According to Milligan, all Special Operations fundamentally do three things: Recon, Wrecking (sabotage/destruction), and Raiding—mission drift occurs when units move beyond these
• Milligan spent ten years researching his book using primary archival sources, emphasizing that effective historical research requires setting limits and beginning writing before research feels complete, or the research phase becomes endless

Episode details: published October 21, 2024 · 44.5K views · 3:06:56 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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