Acquitted Navy SEAL Special Operations Senior Chief Eddie Gallagher and his wife Andrea celebrated their court victory in an interview on Wednesday morning where they said slammed the SEALs who testified against him and urged young recruits to restore the force to its former glory.
Gallagher, who has not made a public comment for 10 months, was sandwiched between his lawyer and his wife for the appearance on Fox and Friends.
Despite his court ordeal, he said he would not take back any of the 20 years of service he had given and he claimed the SEALs who testified against him were not representative of the ones he knew.
‘This small group of SEALs that decided to concoct this story in no way, shape or form represent the community that I love or that I gave my soul to.
‘This has put a black eye on our community but I want the nation to know, this is not what we are about,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t give back the 20 years I have done. I have been able to serve with some of the most honorable men. I’ve had to watch my friends be buried in the ground. I would do it again if I could, I would continue to do it if I could,’ he continued.
Asked for his advice to future SEALs, he said: ‘Loyalty is a trait that seems to be lost and I would say bring that back.
‘Be a part of a brotherhood. Remember you’re there to watch your brother’s back and he’s there to watch yours.
‘Loyalty. And honesty,’ he said.
Eddie Gallagher (center) with his attorney Tim Parlatore (left) and wife Andrea on Wednesday morning as he made a plea to future SEALs to bring ‘loyalty’ back to the ‘brotherhood’
Gallagher will return to court on Wednesday to be sentenced for the one charge he was convicted of – posing with a corpse.
The maximum sentence is four months, which he has already served longer than in confinement awaiting trial.
Gallagher now can file retirement papers and hope to leave with his full pension, or he may be fired.
The Navy can discharge him in three ways; honorably, generally or dishonorably in which case he would likely lose his retirement.
His wife previously revealed that he had planned to retire this year.
Cully Stimson, who spent 25 years in the Navy as a prosecutor, defense counsel and then judge, told DailyMail.com he would likely try to leave as soon as possible.
‘What I don’t think will happen is that he’s retained and continues to serve. He doesn’t want to – hell no. And I wouldn’t either.
‘I’ve had clients acquitted in criminal cases and the last thing they want to do is serve another day in uniform because they feel they have been wronged, and he is adamant he has been,’ he said.
How far the Navy will now go in punishing him financially remains to be seen.
Gallagher and his wife have lambasted the the Navy for going after him after nearly two decades of service and say they are the targets of a ‘fixated’ prosecution and dishonest, ‘mean girls’ SEALs who simply did not like Gallagher’s tough leadership in the battlefield.
Outside the court on Tuesday, Gallagher greeted the media alongside his wife and lawyers. He spoke briefly saying: ‘I’m happy and I’m thankful.
‘I thank God, my legal team and my wife.’
According to Fox News he joked with his legal team that ‘it’s Independence Day’.
His wife Andrea said they are now looking forward to freedom: ‘We just want to celebrate today.
‘I was feeling like we’re finally vindicated after being terrorized by the government that my husband fought for for 20 years.
‘I think that this vindication, I hope, will be a lesson learned to everybody, that we need to uphold innocent until proven guilty (and) due process.’

An unidentified SEAL is shown unzipping a medical bag to tend to the boy in Mosul, 2017, while others stand around. Gallagher and one other, Corey Scott, treated him

Navy Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher, center, walks with his wife, Andrea Gallagher, left, and advisor, Bernard Kerik as they leave a military court on Naval Base San Diego, Tuesday
‘If this was a movie no one would believe it.’
The couple drove away from the court in a white convertible Mustang and headed to celebrate with his supporters joking they were heading for ‘tattoos and alcohol’.
Defense lawyer Marc Mukasey said Gallagher cried ‘tears of joy, emotion, freedom and absolute euphoria’. Family and friends clutched each other in relief in the courtroom.
Mukasey added outside court: ‘Suffice it to say this is a huge victory.
‘It’s a huge weight off the Gallaghers.’
The maximum sentence for posing with a corpse is four months and he spent longer than that in confinement awaiting trial before being freed by President Trump in March therefore he left the court Tuesday.
‘We have a sentencing to do, but the maximum sentence of what they’re about to sentence him on is much less than the time that they’ve already had him in the brig,’ defense attorney Tim Parlatore said after Tuesday’s verdict. ‘So he is going home.’
Parlatore said the trial was a ‘mutiny’ and that he was being set up for the murder of the young ISIS fighter in 2017 by a group of younger SEALs who did not like his tough, old-school leadership style.
‘The jury found him not guilty of murder, stabbing, the shootings, not guilty of all those things. They did find him guilty of taking a photo with a dead terrorist which we admitted all along, he’s in that photo,’ Parlatore added.
At the time they started complaining about him to their superiors, the other SEALs had been back in the US for six months and Gallagher was up for a promotion and a Silver Star.
The turning point in the court martial was when one of the SEALs, Corey Scott, who had been expected to testify for the prosecution took responsibility for killing the boy Gallagher was alleged to have murdered.

Special Operations Chief Edward ‘Eddie’ Gallagher is pictured above
Scott now faces perjury charges from the Naval prosecutors he blindsided. They say he made it up to protect Gallagher after being granted immunity for his own war crimes.
Earlier Tuesday Andrea shared a black and white photograph on a Facebook page where she has been keeping fans and followers updated throughout the trial, Andrea Gallagher wrote: ‘Please pray for a Not Guilty verdict and the #TRUTH to finally set us Free as the jury deliberates again today so this nightmare can end.’
Prosecutors told them that Gallagher’s guilt was clear in photos he took with the dead militant’s body.
They also pointed to texts where Gallagher allegedly told friends: ‘Got him with my hunting knife’ and ‘there’s a good story behind this’, claiming those proved his guilt.
They tried to throw out the confession of another SEAL who took credit for killing the boy, claiming he was lying because he had been given immunity and wanted to protect Gallagher, and said jurors must focus instead on what Gallagher said after the boy’s death.