Navy SEALs get 2nd rear admiral in Coronado...

From Signonsandiego.com :

New brass shows SEALs' increased status
By Otto Kreisher
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
1:19 p.m. May 15, 2006

WASHINGTON – The Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado is about to get a second rear admiral, another indication of the increased status of the Navy's elite warriors in the global war on terrorism.

Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, a one-star officer, will become deputy to Rear Adm. Joseph Maguire, the first two-star officer to command the SEALs, special boat crewmen and support personnel.

Throughout most of its history, the Coronado command was led by a one-star officer or a captain. Maguire assumed the command in March 2004 as a one star and was promoted.
Kernan, currently a director of operations at the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., will be the first admiral to hold the deputy commander's post, said Cmdr. Jeffrey Bender, the Coronado command's spokesman.

Maguire's promotion and the assignment of a rear admiral as deputy is a reflection “of the level of responsibility Naval Special Warfare Command now has,” Bender said.

The SEALs and the other elite units of the Special Operations Command – which include the Army Special Forces and Rangers, a number of Air Force squadrons and now a Marine Corps unit – have been playing a major role in the war on terrorism.

Michael Vickers, a former Army Special Forces officer who is now an analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the SEALs and the other special operations warriors “meet the needs of the times we're in. They are the central force in the war on terror.”

Sixteen SEALs died during the fighting in Afghanistan, which was conducted initially by special operations troops.

The special operations units also have benefited from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's high regard for the unconventional warriors, Vickers said.

The nearly 50,000-man Special Operations Command is scheduled to grow by 12,000, including 300 to 400 more members of the Navy Special Warfare Command's nearly 5,000 active and reserve servicemen and civilian support personnel.

The Pentagon also has announced the nomination of Capt. Edward G. Winter, an officer at the Tampa headquarters, for promotion to rear admiral. That would make him the eighth admiral in the SEAL community, which in the past seldom had more than one officer above the rank of captain.

The seven current admirals include two three-star officers – Vice Adms. Eric Olson, the deputy commander in Tampa; and Albert Calland, deputy director for military operations at the CIA – the highest rank ever held by a SEAL.

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