TAMPA, Fla. — Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. He died August 2, 2006. And his mother Debbie Lee said Thursday that when she heard President Barack Obama publicly announcing details of the raid that took al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden’s life, she felt like she lost her son all over again.
“You want to talk about leaks?” Mrs. Lee asked The Daily Caller at the Tampa Convention Center. “That was a massive intelligence leak, and the president did it single-handedly.”
“You don’t disclose information about special operations missions — ever,” Lee said. “The president of the United States knows better. Heck, I know better.
“He made a huge mistake. He’s a weak commander-in-chief.”
Lee founded America’s Mighty Warriors to honor her fallen son, and to support and encourage other families who are coping with the loss of a son in uniform. “My son’s name, ‘Marc,’ means ‘mighty warrior,'” she said.
The organization’s public profile, Lee explained, is meant to be a surrogate for parents whose children are still on active duty. “The ones whose families are still in the military — it’s against the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] to speak up at all.”
“But mostly,” she added, “I have compassion for the other families of sons who were lost. The price we paid for our freedoms was much dearer to us. We have to speak up.”
“I listened to Cindy Sheehan spew her nonsense,” Lee recalled, thinking about another famous gold star mother. ‘And I didn’t judge her, because she lost a son.”
“But then I lost mine. I was proud of President Bush for standing strong for our troops. That was a real commander-in-chief we had.”
But now, she told TheDC, President Obama “continues to stab our troops in the back … with budget cuts, but not giving them clear rules of engagement, by shrinking medical services — and then their lives are being compromised because of the [intelligence] leaks.”
Obama is “putting people’s lives in jeopardy,” Lee said. “And I know the families of some of those heroes lost since 2009 when Obama moved in.”
“I don’t care if it’s from a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. It’s disgusting.”