Where To Edit Fake Tattoos?

Do any of the American special ops units have traditional tattoos?

• It is well established tradition for Marines and Sailors to have service specific tattoos, and it seems like everyone in the service has a tattoo these days. In fiction (Tom Clancy) and movies (Lethal Weapon) there are references to SEAL and Special Forces specific tattoos. Is there any factual basis for these characterizations? If so, what are the operational security implications of such, and how is this viewed by command? Looking for confirmation here, not descriptions or pictures. Edit: I am specifically not talking about something that would obviously identify the unit. I went in with the assumption that as Michael Janke put in his excellent answer, prior to this edit, "no one except you or your team mates would ever recognize it". I was actually thinking more along the lines of a, "Yeah, everyone in my unit got this tattoo, here's why it's special to us, and nobody but us would know what it means (except you, now that I told you son)." type of thing.

• Answer:

  There is a lot of misconceptions out there about this subject -mainly due to movies and television shows. Having a "Unit identifying Tattoo" is frowned upon and greatly discouraged at all levels of Special Operations....especially in SEAL and SF units. SEAL's and SF guys have tattoos -I see more and more tattoos on younger guys in the units -BUT not "Unit Identifying Tattoos". At Six and Delta -where the average age is 30 and up.....the idea is to not look military in any fashion -longer hair, beard, etc. In addition, if a mission goes wrong and any of us end up getting captured or in a foreign jail -having a SEAL Trident or an SF Tab or arrowhead tattoo immediately blows your cover story (I am only a student visiting your wonderful 3rd world country.....) and quickly puts the foreign intelligence service eyes squarely on you.....which also quickly involves hoses, pipes, waterboarding, and electricity.....not a good thing. If any of the younger guys end up doing something stupid and getting a SEAL Trident tattoo -the older SEALs usually force them to have it lasered or covered over -it has happended several times. Most operators get tattoos that have a very far-reaching and benign reference to the SEALs....such as a Frog tattoo with a roman numeral 4 or 6 hidden in the tattoo....but there is no "template" -it is more personal preference and the idea is that no one except you or your team mates would ever recognize it as a SEAL identifyer... Most operators have tattoos.....none get Unit Identifying Tattoos until they retire or leave....