BOLDLY INTO THE BREACH: The true story of SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods and their heroism at Benghazi

Atreides writes:

President Obama implied in his Weekly Address that Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were part of Ambassador Christopher Steven’s security detail:

Glen and Tyrone had each served America as Navy SEALs for many years, before continuing their service providing security for our diplomats in Libya. They died as they lived their lives — defending their fellow Americans, and advancing the values that all of us hold dear.

Sounds good, the only problem is this statement is a total fabrication. Yes, they were both former Navy Seals, but neither Tyrone nor Glen were part of the Ambassador's official security detail.

No. The truth is: they heard the attack, they heard the gunfire, and despite the danger to themselves they rushed into the breach taking weapons from the frightened Libyan security officials to help protect the American Consulate, Ambassador Stevens and his embassy aide Sean Smith.

Both Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were under no obligation to assist, protect or defend Stevens. They could have bugged out, they didn't….. They ran into the breach. It was, and is, an important enough distinction such that two U.S. officials quickly wanted to tell the truth. They told the Guardian:

...they feared the Obama administration’s scant description of the episode left a mis-impression that the two ex-Navy SEALs might have been responsible for the ambassador’s personal safety or become separated from him.

Woods and Doherty weren't part of the detail, nor were they personally responsible for the ambassador’s security, but they stepped into the breach when the attacks occurred and their actions saved others lives — and they shouldn’t be lumped in with the security detail,...

According to what scant actual information is available the former SEAL team members, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, appear to have been in Libya because they were contracted by another intelligence office to track down the missing surface-to-air missiles from the initial rebel uprising.

During the Gadaffi overthrow massive stockpiles of Libyan weapons including MANPADS and other surface to air missiles were looted from the military storage facilities. Estimates put the number of missing missiles around 20,000.

It appears Doherty and Woods were in Libya to track down those weapons. As a consequence of their visit they were crashed at an annex to the US consulate grounds using it as a safe place to meet, coordinate, and evaluate their ongoing intel. Their location was approximately a half mile from the main consulate compound area.

They were inside an annex building when the main consulate complex came under attack from the Libyan al-Qaeda terrorists. They heard the distant shots and responded to a call for help from the compound itself. Both Woods and Doherty evaluated the assassination attempt, and immediately took up arms to defend Ambassador Stevens.

Their heroism is incredible when you consider what they were facing. Doherty and Woods reached the main compound of the Consulate and evacuated approximately 20 employees. Unfortunately, Ambassador Steven’s aide Sean Smith was already dead when they arrived. Woods and Doherty fought through the firefight, and took the consulate employees back to the annex building where again they came under another wave of attacks.

Between the initial firefight at the Main Consulate, and at the annex building, for over two hours they were able to fight back against approximately 200 al-Qaeda terrorists, who pre-planned and coordinated the attack to occur in two stages.

The second wave of attacks at the annex brought even more firepower upon them. Yet they held their position providing time for the 20 consulate employees to be rescued. In total for over two hours they held off upwards of 200 attackers, under heavy fire from RPGs, mortars, and at least one 23mm Anti Aircraft gun firing on their position(s) around the consulate grounds and the annex building.

May they rest in peace and their memories be for a blessing. Our thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones.


Update: While I received this post as a comment on another article, the entire article (and more) appeared originally on Conservative Treehouse and is well worth seeing.