Exonerated for War Crimes: Navy SEAL Chief (Ret.) David Swarts
- 3 days ago
- 17 min read
A veteran’s life post military service, and creating Redwatch Training
The morning of September 11, 2001 started like any other training day in Fallon, Nevada. David Swarts walked into a coffee shop and saw the television playing footage of a plane hitting a building. His first reaction was confusion. He asked someone nearby what movie was on. Within seconds he realized it wasn’t a movie at all.
Moments like that sit quietly in the background of a military career until you look back and realize how much changed after them.
Swarts’ story stretches from a working-class neighborhood outside Cleveland to the Navy, through the long road to BUD/S, and into the operational tempo of the SEAL teams during the height of the post-9/11 wars. It includes the stubborn persistence required to survive BUD/S after multiple setbacks in the water, the mentorship and loss that shaped his early deployments, and the complicated reality of life inside a combat unit during years of nonstop operations.
But the story doesn’t stop with deployments. It also moves through personal mistakes, leadership friction, a years-long court-martial fight, and the difficult transition out of the Navy. What emerges is a full picture of a career that includes achievement, cost, and eventually a new purpose in civilian life.
While you keep reading, click play below and listen to Episode 238
LISTEN
From the Cleveland Ohio area to Navy SEAL
David Swarts spent his childhood in South Euclid, a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio. He grew up in the same house, on the same block, in the same neighborhood for nearly two decades. It was the kind of place where people stayed put and where most kids grew up knowing the same friends for years.
His family structure changed early. His parents divorced when he was about five years old. After that, he lived primarily with his mother and younger sister. His father remained around and he saw him on weekends, but it wasn’t the kind of relationship that defined his childhood.
His mother worked as a mail carrier. His father ran a dental-related business. The household wasn’t built around military service or any obvious pipeline into the life he would eventually choose.
Sports filled a lot of the early years.
He played baseball growing up and later football. Like a lot of kids in the Midwest, those sports were part of the rhythm of life. Practice, games, hanging out with friends, then doing it all again the next season.
He also experimented with combat sports before he really understood what they were.
At one point, he went to a wrestling camp. Later, he tried some judo and karate. None of it was particularly structured or long-term. It was just something kids tried.
When he attempted wrestling again in high school as a junior, the experience was humbling. Most of the other wrestlers had been training since childhood. He hadn’t. Smaller, more experienced athletes handled him easily. It was one of the first reminders that experience and time invested matter.
School itself wasn’t the focus.
By his own admission, his priorities in high school were cars, auto shop, girls, and partying. College wasn’t really on the radar. He wasn’t building toward a professional plan. He was living day to day in the way a lot of teenagers do when they don’t yet see a clear direction ahead.
Work entered his life early.
He started working in restaurants, first as a busser, then moving through prep cook and line cook roles. It wasn’t just a job. He developed a real interest in cooking. Kitchens can be chaotic, fast-moving environments, and he seemed to thrive in that pace.
At home, food had a role too. His family celebrated Jewish holidays, and those gatherings often involved large meals where everyone contributed. He remembers helping prepare food for those occasions.
For a time, culinary school felt like a possible future. But like many early interests, it never quite came together.
Instead, he shifted into construction and landscaping work.
The work was physical and hands-on. Building decks, gazebos, patios, and full yard layouts required real labor and practical skills. It was a far cry from restaurant kitchens but still part of a pattern that would show up repeatedly in his life. He liked environments where you could see what you had built at the end of the day.
High school itself didn’t end cleanly.
At one point, he got into a fight that resulted in suspension and being removed from school. He eventually returned and completed what amounted to a second senior year.
Looking back, he’s blunt about that period. He didn’t apply himself. He didn’t care much about school at the time. That lack of direction wasn’t unusual for someone his age, but it meant he reached adulthood without a clear path forward.
Family relationships also carried some quiet weight.
His father was around but not deeply involved in day-to-day life. One memory that stuck with him was how rarely his father came to baseball practices or games. It wasn’t a dramatic story. Just the kind of absence a kid notices over time.
By the time he reached his late teens, the environment around him began to change in ways that pushed him toward a decision.
Some of the people he grew up with were starting to spiral into serious trouble. Drugs were becoming a bigger presence. The kinds of mistakes that derail lives were no longer abstract possibilities.
He could see the direction things were heading.
That realization became one of the first real turning points in his life. He started thinking about leaving Cleveland altogether. Not just changing jobs or going to school somewhere else, but physically removing himself from the environment he had grown up in.
He had already taken the ASVAB and had some contact with military recruiters.
He had been talking with both Army and Marine recruiters. The Marine Corps route stalled because the recruiter kept delaying things. It was one of those bureaucratic pauses that can derail momentum.
Then something simple happened.
Some younger brothers of friends he knew were leaving for the Navy. They were shipping out soon, within weeks. Hearing that lit a spark.
If they were leaving that quickly, maybe he could, too.
He went to a Navy recruiter and asked the same question most young people ask when they’ve finally decided to go.
How soon can I leave? The answer surprised him. Two weeks.
That was it. No long buildup. No months of planning.
Two weeks later, he would be gone.
He went home and told the two people who needed to know first. His girlfriend and his mother.
He was leaving for the Navy.
Soon after that, he was on his way.
Looking back now, he says it was the best decision he could have made. Not because he had some clear vision of becoming a Navy SEAL at the time, even though that idea was already in his mind.
But because leaving Cleveland at that moment separated him from a path that had started to turn dark for many people he grew up with.
In the years that followed, some of those people would overdose or get pulled into serious trouble.
Enlisting in the Navy: From Aviation Mechanic to the BUD/S Opportunity
When Dave joined the Navy in 1999, he didn’t arrive with a guaranteed path to the SEAL teams. Like many young men who enlist with big ambitions, he had the goal in mind but not the contract that would take him straight there.
From the start, he wanted to become a Navy SEAL.
But the reality of the enlistment process didn’t line up cleanly with that ambition. Instead of entering on a SEAL contract, he signed on as an aviation mechanic. At the time, he didn’t fully understand the difference between enlistment tracks or how the pipeline worked. What he did know was that he liked mechanical things. Cars had always been part of his life, and airplanes held the same appeal.
As a kid he built model aircraft, and like plenty of young men his age, the movie Top Gun had left an impression.
Working on aircraft felt like a natural fit.
So that became his first role in the Navy.
He shipped out to boot camp in July 1999 and graduated around November of that year. While most recruits are focused on simply surviving the experience, he had something else on his mind. During boot camp, he sought out the candidates who were preparing for special operations.
At the time, that meant training with the dive motivator program.
He remembers watching those candidates hammer pushups, situps, and long runs while most recruits were simply trying to get through the standard training cycle. The volume of physical work stood out to him. It was a preview of the environment he wanted to reach.
But the path wasn’t immediate.
After boot camp he went through the aviation training pipeline, including the A school and C school necessary for aircraft mechanics. From there he checked into his first operational command in
Virginia Beach.
He still remembers the timing. He arrived on Christmas Day.
His unit was part of a larger carrier air group operating out of the USS John C. Stennis. Life in naval aviation meant a steady rhythm of training cycles, maintenance work, and deployments.
For a young mechanic, the job was technical and demanding. Aircraft maintenance isn’t forgiving work. Every detail matters because someone’s life eventually depends on that machine performing correctly.
At the same time, the desire to become a SEAL never left him.
But there was another reality he had to confront.
Once he checked into his first command, he learned that he owed that command three years of service before he could apply to attend BUD/S. It wasn’t something he had fully understood before signing his contract.
For the next three years, the goal had to wait.
Those early deployments and operational experiences shaped him in ways he didn’t fully recognize at the time. Naval aviation life meant long stretches at sea, working on aircraft around the clock, and learning how military units actually functioned.
Then the world changed.
On September 11, 2001, he was in Fallon, Nevada.
Fallon is known primarily for its aviation training ranges. For naval aviators it’s the home of the Top Gun program. But it’s also a place where SEAL units conduct training, particularly in ground mobility and off-road operations.
Dave had already spent time around SEALs there while talking about his eventual goal of attending BUD/S.
That morning he walked into a coffee shop and saw footage playing on a television screen.
His first reaction was confusion.
He asked what movie it was.
Someone said it wasn’t a movie.
The attacks were happening in real time.
The atmosphere changed instantly. He remembers SEAL personnel being recalled almost immediately. His own squadron began preparing to surge forward. The operational tempo that followed the attacks changed everything for the military.
Within a few months, his unit was deploying.
While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ramped up, Swarts continued serving in aviation maintenance. The work kept him close to the operational side of the Navy even if he wasn’t yet in the community he wanted.
Eventually his first enlistment cycle approached the point where he could pursue the SEAL pipeline.
He began assembling his application package for BUD/S after returning from a second deployment in the years following 9/11. Getting that package approved wasn’t simple.
The system moved slower than he expected.
Part of the process required approval from his command. They had to sign paperwork stating they would release him if he received orders to attend BUD/S. That kind of approval isn’t always automatic. Commands invest time and resources into sailors, and losing trained personnel can disrupt operations.
The paperwork dragged on.
Meanwhile, his squadron was preparing for another carrier deployment that would last six or seven months. If his BUD/S orders didn’t arrive in time, he would have to go back to sea and wait even longer before trying again.
For someone who had already waited years, the timing mattered.
Then the orders came through.
At the last possible moment.
His command signed off, the paperwork cleared, and the Navy issued orders sending him to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.
The transition from aviation mechanic to SEAL candidate wasn’t a straight line. It took years of waiting, deployments, and navigating a system that doesn’t move quickly just because someone is motivated.
But the opportunity finally arrived.
After three years serving in naval aviation and working toward the goal quietly in the background, David Swarts was finally headed to BUD/S.
WATCH THE EPISODE
BUD/S, War, Captain's Mast, and Grownig Mistakes
By the time David finally received orders to attend BUD/S, he had already been in the Navy for several years. He wasn’t arriving as an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. He came in with operational experience, deployments behind him, and a clearer understanding of how the military actually worked.
He reported to BUD/S as part of Class 248.
Like most candidates, he arrived confident in his physical preparation. The training pipeline quickly revealed weaknesses he hadn’t anticipated.
The water was the first problem.
Second phase included one evolution that would become a major obstacle for him: the tread. Candidates were required to stay afloat wearing twin 80-pound scuba tanks and a 12-pound weight belt while keeping their hands out of the water and maintaining control of their breathing.
For Dave, it became a repeated failure point.
He struggled with the evolution and ended up rolling back in training. The tread wasn’t a one-time event. It was repeated over and over until the candidate either passed or quit. He remembers needing eight attempts to complete it.
Looking back, he believes the real problem wasn’t just physical. It was mental.
He had developed a negative mindset about being in the water. Every attempt reinforced the expectation that he would fail again. Breaking that pattern took time.
Eventually he did pass the tread and moved deeper into second phase, and Pool Comp.
Pool comp is designed to simulate equipment failures underwater while an instructor actively interferes with the diver. Masks get ripped off. Regulators are pulled from the mouth. Hoses are tied in knots. Candidates have to calmly fix the problems in a strict sequence without panicking.
During one attempt, Swarts tried to surface before completing the procedure.
An instructor forced a regulator back into his mouth and sent him back down.
The message was clear. Panic wasn’t acceptable.
He eventually passed pool comp as well, though it took multiple attempts. The pattern of BUD/S for him wasn’t dominance. It was persistence.
Once he moved into third phase, the environment shifted. Compared to the constant pressure of earlier phases, he remembers parts of third phase feeling almost relaxed. Training moved into the mountains where students conducted long movements and tactical exercises without the constant harassment of instructors.
After graduating BUD/S and completing SEAL Qualification Training, Swarts entered the Teams during one of the most intense periods in modern special operations history, but first he raised his hand when they asked for Corpsman volunteers. Volunteers got their choice of team selection.
Dave went to the Army's 18 Delta medic course passed. By timing and luck of things, he was in the right place at the right time, he got to go to free-fall school as well. He checked into SEAL Team 10 in October 2005.
The team had just suffered devastating losses during Operation Red Wings a few months earlier . The impact of that mission still hung over the community when he arrived. Losing operators at that scale leaves a permanent mark on a unit.
Dave soon deployed to Iraq.
Fallujah became the backdrop for his first operational experience as a SEAL. Like many new operators, he was eager to prove himself. The operational tempo was relentless, and young SEALs often pushed to be included in as many missions as possible.
Dave had built a close relationship with a teammate Clark Schwedler. Clark served as his “Sea-daddy,” the experienced SEAL assigned to mentor a new guy entering the platoon. The relationship quickly became more than a professional obligation. Clark was someone he respected and trusted deeply.
During one stretch of operations, Dave had been running missions almost nonstop. At one point someone in the platoon tried to give him a break from the next operation so he could rest.
He pushed back.
He didn’t want the break. He wanted to go.
The mission went without him.
That operation turned into the moment that would permanently shape his memory of that deployment.
Clark was killed.
The loss landed hard. They had only days left in the deployment before heading home. In combat units, the difference between going on a mission and staying behind can be random. That randomness becomes impossible to ignore when someone you know doesn’t come back.
Dave continued through the rest of the deployment, eventually returning home and continuing his career inside the SEAL teams.
Along the way he took on additional responsibilities.
His early deployments moved him quickly into leadership positions. During his first Iraq deployment he advanced to E-6 and began taking on greater responsibility within his platoon.
Like many SEAL careers, the next step involved trying to move into the most selective elements of the community.
Dave attempted to screen for Development Group: Green Team.
He didn’t make it.
The failure was difficult at the time, but it also redirected his career in ways he later viewed differently. Instead of moving forward in the selection pipeline, he was assigned to training command.
He subsequently took an assignment to TRADET, the training detachment responsible for teaching skills such as ground mobility.
The assignment forced him into a different role. Instead of focusing exclusively on operations, he was teaching younger SEALs and helping prepare them for deployments. Over time he came to believe the experience made him a better operator and leader.
During this period, his personal life also changed significantly.
He got married and also became a father.
The shift from single-guy team culture to family life happened quickly. Deployments continued while his responsibilities at home grew. At one point he left for deployment while his child was still too young to walk.
Balancing both worlds wasn’t easy.
At the same time, earlier issues began resurfacing.
During his first deployment he had been accused of detainee abuse involving prisoners. The allegation was investigated at the time and did not result in a conviction.
After the initial Captain's Mast and not being found in violation, his career was affected. Dave took an assignment to Team 5 on the West Coast. Years later, however, the accusations would be revived as a court-martial.
What followed was a long and complicated legal process.
The investigation expanded and eventually developed into a multi-year court-martial case. The experience placed enormous strain on his career and personal life. Legal battles, command decisions, and internal Navy politics began to reshape how he viewed the institution he had served for years.
The process dragged on for years.
By the time the case finally resolved, the damage had already spread into multiple areas of his life. The prolonged investigation stalled his advancement and disrupted his standing within the community.
It also affected his family.
Marital strain, heavy drinking, and the pressure of the legal fight created additional fractures. Some of the responsibility for those struggles, he openly admits, came from his own decisions.
At the same time he was navigating the end of his career.
The combination of legal pressure, personal issues, and frustration with Navy leadership had already begun shaping his outlook.
The institution he once believed in no longer felt the same.
Eventually he made the decision to retire from the Navy.
The career that began with a two-week decision to leave Cleveland had taken him through BUD/S, multiple deployments, combat losses, and years of legal conflict before reaching its conclusion.
Life After the Teams: Transition, Purpose, and Building Something New
By the time Dave approached retirement from the Navy, he had already lived through most of the experiences that make transition complicated for veterans.
Combat deployments. Leadership responsibility. Loss inside the teams. Legal battles that stretched across years. Strain on family life. And the gradual shift from believing deeply in an institution to feeling uncertain about where he fit inside it.
When retirement finally came at the end of 2019, he wasn’t stepping into civilian life with a blank slate. He had been somewaht preparing for it.
During the later stages of his career he was encouraged to attend The Honor Foundation, an organization that helps members of the special operations community prepare for life after military service. The program is designed to help operators translate their experience into civilian language and build practical plans for what comes next.
For Dave, the process started to create a path.
He began applying to graduate programs and eventually received acceptance into an MBA program at SMU, ironically he didn't have an undergrad degree. Around the same time, he also received an offer for a leadership-track position with an oil company in Texas.
On paper, the plan looked squared away.
Finish the MBA. Start the new role. Transition directly from military leadership into a civilian leadership career.
But transition rarely unfolds in a straight line.
While those plans were forming, the legal issues that had followed him through the latter part of his career were still casting a shadow. The stress of the court-martial process had already taken a toll on his marriage and family life.
Eventually his marriage ended.
That change alone forced him to reassess the direction he thought his life was heading. The Texas opportunity that once looked promising no longer made sense under the new circumstances.
He turned it down.
In a matter of months, the carefully constructed transition plan he had been building disappeared. The MBA path and leadership role were gone, and he found himself facing a situation that many veterans quietly experience after leaving the military.
Starting over.
For a period of time, the future felt uncertain. The identity that had defined him for decades was gone, and the plan that was supposed to replace it had collapsed.
Then something changed.
Eventually he found a new professional opportunity that allowed him to regain momentum. He describes the moment simply. Purpose returned.
That sense of purpose is something many veterans search for after leaving the military. It’s not always about replicating the exact intensity of military service. It’s about finding work that still feels meaningful.
Over time, Dave moved into the private sector and landed a job with a construction company, along with several other SEALs. That company was not squared away to operate and he got laid off.
But he and some of these SEALs created RedWatch. The business focuses on shooting and training, drawing directly from the kinds of operational experience he developed during his years in the SEAL teams.
The transition into ownership wasn’t about trying to recreate the past. It was about building something forward.
In many ways, the work reflects a familiar pattern from his earlier life. He has always gravitated toward environments where the results of effort are visible. Whether it was building decks and patios during his teenage years, maintaining aircraft as a young sailor, or conducting missions as a SEAL, the work involved tangible outcomes.
Running a business carries the same kind of direct responsibility.
Beyond the professional side of life, the transition also created space for reflection about the years he spent in the military and the challenges that came with them.
He talks about the strain those years placed on family life.
Deployments mean long absences. Operators miss milestones at home while they are overseas. In his case, he left for deployment while his child was still too young to walk. Like many service members, he returned to a home that had continued moving forward without him.
Over time, those pressures accumulate.
He also acknowledges the personal decisions that contributed to problems in his marriage. Heavy drinking and the stress surrounding the legal battles in his career added to an already difficult environment.
Looking back, he doesn’t try to shift all the blame elsewhere. Some of the consequences, he says directly, came from his own mistakes.
That kind of honesty is part of what shapes the advice he offers to other veterans approaching transition.
The first message is simple.
Prepare early.
Waiting until the final months of a military career makes the transition much harder. Programs like The Honor Foundation exist for a reason. They provide time and structure for veterans to think about their future before the uniform comes off.
The second piece of advice focuses on expectations.
Leaving the military doesn’t mean the next chapter will unfold perfectly. Plans change. Opportunities disappear. Sometimes the path forward requires rebuilding from scratch.
Swarts experienced that firsthand when his initial transition plan collapsed.
But the third piece of advice is the one that matters most.
Purpose matters.
The military provides a strong sense of mission. When that disappears, many veterans struggle to replace it. Finding meaningful work and surrounding yourself with the right people helps rebuild that sense of direction.
For Dave, building a company alongside partners who share similar backgrounds created that opportunity.
Today his life looks very different from the one he lived during his years in the SEAL teams.
There are no deployments. No platoons preparing for the next operation. No training cycles or command structures defining the rhythm of each year.
Instead, the focus is on business, family, and the work of building something that lasts beyond a military career.
The path that led there wasn’t clean or predictable. It included successes, mistakes, losses, and hard lessons that only become clear with time.
But in the end, the same decision that once took him out of Cleveland at nineteen years old still defines the direction of his life.
He moved forward.
And kept moving.
Closing
David Swarts entered the SEAL Teams the way many young operators do. Confident. Competitive. By his own description, a little cocky and arrogant. The kind of confidence that helps you survive BUD/S, earn your place in a platoon, and push through deployments when the tempo never seems to slow down.
Over time that young operator grew into something different. He gained experience, took on leadership roles, and eventually promoted to Chief. The path looked like the natural progression of a career inside the teams.
Then it changed.
Years after an earlier deployment, he found himself facing accusations of detainee abuse and a court-martial process that stretched across years. The case eventually ended with him being exonerated, but the outcome didn’t reset his career the way people might assume. Time had passed. Promotions required specific milestones and timing, and those windows had closed while the legal fight played out. What remained was frustration, a stalled career path, and a lingering disappointment in the Navy and the leadership above him.
When he retired, he had to figure out who he was without the uniform.
Like many veterans, that process wasn’t immediate. Plans shifted. Opportunities changed. But over time he found his footing again, eventually helping build RedWatch, where the experience from his years in the SEAL Teams now supports a different kind of mission.
The environment changed. The mission changed. But the drive that carried him from Cleveland into the teams never really left.
CONNECT WITH DAVID SWARTS
VIEW OUR MOST RECENT
 |  |  |  |
