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Inside the paid Sunday Reader. The full edition is included with Supporter; free readers may receive a preview.

Paid Sunday Reader · actual issue preview

This week in American power projection: the map was wrong, the dorms were fine, and the travel card was for official purposes.

Story Roundup

Pentagon casualties, metric improvement, and Fat Leonard’s least dignified phase.

Situation Report

A State Department map that relocated most of Africa, one ambitious government travel card, and 5,200 medical students moved from dorms that definitely do not have mold.

SEALs quietly end relationship with PR firm behind ‘bad boy’ image campaign

SEALs quietly end relationship with PR firm behind ‘bad boy’ image campaign

CORONADO, Calif. – Sources close to the Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) have revealed the command has discreetly severed ties with the public relations firm of Livingston, Aldred, and Burley. Contracted in 2011, the firm had a single purpose — to help bring a paradigm shift to the public image of the Navy’s premier commando force, the SEALs. That edict ultimately would go horribly awry.

Reeling from years of veteran ridicule as Hollywood pretty boys as concerned with hair gel, chest waxing, and book deals instead of as killers of the enemies of freedom, NAVSPECWARCOM contracted the firm to help change the narrative. LA&B recommended changing the SEALs’ reputation from pretty boys to bad boys.

Unbeknownst to Naval commanders, the storied frogmen would take the new message and run with it. From SEALs being accused of illegally killing ISIS prisoners and taking selfies with their bodies to a variety of other heinous crimes, the Navy SEALs apparently went from SOCOM Navy SEALs to Grand Theft Auto in the blink of an eye.

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