The elite Navy SEAL team that ended bin Laden's game is based in this seaside resort, but the T-shirts are the only outward sign that Virginia Beach has any special ties to the killing of the Al-Qaeda leader.

And while residents of this town are brimming with pride for the men in Navy SEAL Team Six who took part in the raid that killed bin Laden on May 1, they want the unit to stay as secret as the missions it conducts.

"We know they exist, but we don't know them," Danny Barry told AFP at the jewelry stand he, his wife Ellen and Turkish-American Dilsat Dorsey run on the Virginia Beach boardwalk.

"They don't talk much, and we don't talk much about them, except to say 'yay for the SEALs' when they do something like this," he said.

When Virginia Beach Mayor William Sessoms asked if he could publicly honor SEAL Team Six, the US Navy said no.

A week after bin Laden was killed, there was no bunting, no "God bless Team Six" signs on the streets of Virginia Beach, a military town that's used to dealing with victory and defeat.

SEAL Team Six is based at the Dam Neck annex of Naval Air Station Oceana, which sits at the end of a tree-lined road behind a protective chicane of orange barriers and a guard detail of armed servicemen who stand nervously to attention when an unknown vehicle pulls up to the guardhouse.

Several times a day, fighter jets from nearby Langley Air Force base or the world's largest naval base in nearby Norfolk roar overhead.

"We're hugely proud of the men who got him. They're a fantastic group and they executed their mission with perfect timing and without error," retired Navy pilot John del Vecchio told AFP.

But that pride doesn't translate into a song and dance in this town.

Del Vecchio, 71, celebrated Team Six's success "with just a smile" after nudging his wife awake when the breaking news banner flashed up on television.

Almost everyone in Virginia Beach shares that quiet pride, but retired SEALs, like Don Shipley, 49, who runs a training camp for anyone who wants to see what it takes to be a SEAL, feel it a bit more than most.

"What happened on 9/11 affected the whole world, and the number one guy responsible for that was got by SEALs. That's huge for us. I'm proud as a peacock," Shipley, who was a SEAL for 24 years before he retired in 2003, told AFP.

According to local media reports, four years ago the SEALs were having trouble recruiting new members and hanging on to old ones, but Team Six's much trumpeted success is "good for the SEALs and not hurting recruiting for the military," Shipley said.

A huge spike in interest in Shipley's SEAL training camps and the elite Navy unit caused Shipley's website to crash after the announcement of bin Laden's death.

"Everyone wants to know about the SEALs now," Shipley said.

The Navy SEAL Foundation said donations which go towards giving financial and emotional support to SEALs and their families were up sharply last week compared to the week before bin Laden was killed.

And critics of the SEALs have been silenced, Shipley said.

"I used to get endless flak on my YouTube channel about the SEALs from guys that love the British SAS, the French Foreign Legion, the Russian Spetsnaz. But they've all shut up.

"Turns out all you have to do is break bin Laden and that stops them."

Virginia Beach residents wished the publicity and media frenzy surrounding Team Six would stop, too, fearing it could put them in danger of reprisal attacks by Al-Qaeda, which last week warned that Americans' joy at the killing of bin Laden "will turn to sorrow and their blood will mix with their tears."

Susanne, 37, who calls herself a "Navy brat" and asked not to give her last name, says she was "upset when they 'named' Team Six as the ones who got bin Laden because it makes Virginia Beach a bit more of a target."

Strolling on the Virginia Beach boardwalk on a sunny spring day last week, 19-year-old Navy enlisted man Scott Stone agreed.

"I really enjoy the fact that Team Six did it, but we shouldn't broadcast where they're based," said Stone, who is due to ship out next week for his first overseas deployment.

"They're trained to get high priority targets, to get Osama bin Laden. If we broadcast where they're based, we could become a high priority target for the enemy."

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