Its a big deal...this is THE top Tier 1 unit in the country. They're responsibilities go much deeper then even Delta's. Nobody knows the exact size or composition of these units. Sure there are pretty good ideas as to how they operate, who's been in them but not hard facts. You can fiond hard facts on any Green Beret Unit that we currently have. These guys are black SOF. They operate under different rules. They work with other units, elements and activities that normal US citizens don't know exist. There are blacker units out there. Most aren't direct action units. Most are intel gathering orgs that take folks from ST6 or Delta and other more well known groups. There's a reason they change their names often. Some of the darker units change every few years. Read Mark Bowden's book 'Killing Pablo' he talks about one such unit.
No, you're missing my point. My point is that revealing a name isn't
likely to be a big deal if proper operational safeguards are in place and some common sense is in use.
What if I told you they're named "Epsilon" or "The Barneys" or even "The Bad Motherfuckers" or "Unit 9"? It's a meaningless name. You can classify it if you want, but the classification itself buys you little in terms of security.
Now it's conceivable the name itself conveyed information so sensitive as to warrant classification, like "Unit 6, headquartered on the abandoned shed on the plot adjacent to Highway 9 and 79th Street in Idaho" or "Unit 9, composed of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren" exposing the isentities of our elite warriors and ruining the cover the spent years establishing.
But I doubt such a name would fly. You know, operational security and common sense.
With all that said, if the name was classified (regardless of whether I consider the classification silly) it should not have been revealed.
And the name of the commander certainly shouldn't have been.
