Former SEAL back in Middle East as a civilian

Scott A. Wirtz grew up in Missouri. When he joined the military, he sought out one of its most selective and difficult programs, graduating from the Navy’s Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL training in 1998 and serving as part of the Navy SEALs until 2005.

He deployed three times to the Middle East as a civilian with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence-gathering operation. For the past two years, he had supervised the collection of intelligence in the same sort of restive regions to which he deployed with the SEALs.

His death, said the Defense Intelligence Agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr., was “a stark reminder of the dangerous missions we conduct for the nation and of the threats we work hard to mitigate.”

Wirtz, 42, was also known for his jocular side, friends said. “He had that rare quality of being a laidback, fun-loving dude, but would

be all business when needed to be,” said Dean Kahu, who worked with him in the Middle East.

In a sense, Kahu said, Wirtz’s deployments after he left the Navy continued to fill a desire that many high-level military operators have after they leave the service. The deployments provided, he said, “the same adrenaline rush as the military.”

“Most of us need that in our lives once we have served in that tempo and at the highest level in our militaries,” Kahu said. “It never goes away.”

Scott A. Wirtz