Navy SEAL chief Eddie Gallagher, who made national headlines in 2019 after he was charged with murdering an Islamic State detainee in Iraq, told Newsmax Saturday that it was "therapeutic" to tell his full story in a new book he and his wife, Andrea, wrote.
"You know, it forced me to go back over the past...writing about the post, the trial, and going through all that stuff it was it was rough, but I'm glad I did it," Gallagher, who appeared with his wife on Newsmax's "Saturday Report," told show host Carl Higbie.
The book, "The Man in the Arena: From Fighting ISIS to Fighting for My Freedom," describes how Gallagher, a highly decorated combat veteran with nine deployments to war zones, was arrested for war crimes, and details his subsequent fight to prove his innocence.
Gallagher was charged with murder and other crimes and acquitted of all but one charge - posing with the corpse of the dead ISIS fighter.
Former President Donald Trump overturned his conviction in July 2019. The Navy had also demoted him to petty officer first class, but Trump overrode that move as well, reinstating Gallagher as a chief petty officer.
In addition to their book, the Gallaghers have also since started the Pipe Hitter Foundation, which supports members of the service and first responders who find themselves targeted by "a system that too often second-guesses our heroes."
Higbie pointed out that he serves on the board "because it's an excellent, excellent cause."
Andrea Gallagher said that while writing their book, it was "crazy to look back at everything that we endured."
"At that time I was just fighting every single day to keep my head above water to try to get him to the place where he could defend himself," she said. "We had a lot of things that we put into the book that were very raw and transparent, and people will see that when they read this book that there were so many things that were going on behind the scenes. There were people like yourself, Carl, that were aiding us, but there were so many opposing forces that were coming, including the mainstream media and including the full weight of the United States government."
She added that it is "unspeakable" what happened, but "our goal is to share our story and be as transparent as possible in the hopes that this actually never happens to a family again."
Eddie Gallagher also said he wants readers to know "exactly what it's like over there" and what special operators go through.
Meanwhile, he said that the Independence Day holiday also means "freedom," but now, it has a "little stronger flavor," because "just two years ago is when we got found not guilty and we got to celebrate our freedom from the government."
His wife, speaking about the Pipe Hitter Foundation, said that they started the organization to "use what we've learned to help other people," and is now working with the case of former La Mesa, Calif., police officer Matt Dages, who is charged with one count of falsifying a police report in connection with the arrest of a Black man, 23-year-old Amaurie Johnson.
According to NBC 7 in San Diego, Johnson has sued Dages and others after the police officer arrested him near a trolley station last year. Johnson's charges have since been dropped.
"We have been watching this very closely," said Andrea Gallagher. "We believe we'll expose some of the things that go on behind the scenes. And we want basically to find people to look into this case."
Eddie Gallagher, meanwhile, spoke out against the "woke culture" that he says is being promoted in the military.
"We saw that last week with Gen. (Mark) Milley pretty much promoting the critical race theory," said Gallagher, adding that he hopes that President Joe Biden will only serve for four years in office and then someone will "actually take charge and put the military to where we're supposed to be."
Critical race theory is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the concept in which race is a socially constructed category ingrained in American law intended to maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. It holds that the U.S. society is inherently or systemically racist.
"It takes a certain type of individual to volunteer to go do that over and over and over," said Gallagher of people who sign up for deployments. "They are still in the military. They are still on the teams. They still want to keep doing it. They just need the right leadership."