Next, the Navy tried to get Higbie and his SEAL friends to turn on one another. It didn’t work.
“They thought they could break us by offering us plea deals or promotions if we ratted each other out,” Higbie said. “But nobody did anything here. That’s the fundamental fact.”
All the SEALs were encouraged to subject themselves to a general’s punishment to avoid courts martial. All the SEALs rejected the offer, and they were all exonerated.
After returning home, Higbie put his frustrations on paper, penning, “Battle on the Home Front: A Navy SEAL’s Mission to Save the American Dream.”
The military requires all such books to be submitted for review to make sure no classified material is included. The review is to last no more than 30 days. After two years of waiting, Higbie published the book anyway. At that time the government listed a number of possible violations in the manuscript, although not in writing. That resulted in another legal battle, which Higbie also won.
Next came the Navy’s treatment of Higbie’s exit from the military.
“They offered me an honorable discharge to get out early. I took it,” Higbie said. “Six weeks after leaving the military, they downgraded my discharge to a general (discharge), which is illegal. You have to attend a court martial or an Administrative Separation Board. Both of those are due process. They had the opportunity to do it. They didn’t.”
Another fight was on.
“After two years of fighting, we won with a 5-0 appellate court decision in my favor to overturn my discharge back to honorable,” Higbie said.
Higbie says he wrote the new book to prove you can challenge the government and win, but that you must be very well prepared. As for the current state of the military, he said politicians who were elected by people who never served in the military need to let the military do the job it was meant to do.
“Our military has been and always will be the most deadly fighting force the world has ever known, but you have to take the handcuffs off,” Higbie said. “It is the command leadership that is unwilling to fight this war.”
“You need war fighters and door-kickers to make these decisions on site,” he said. “And you need to let us do it.”
Despite the myriad battles with the Navy, Higbie cherishes the time he spent with his unit and said he will never stop fighting for what is right.
“I was not the biggest, fastest, strongest, best, sharpest guy in my unit by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. “There were a lot of guys that were better than me and guys I learned a lot from. To have the ability to serve with such a unit is such an incredible experience. That’s why I fight for the principles I do in my books because I genuinely believe they’re worth fighting for.”