Ten people, including two high-ranking Navy SEALs, have been singled out for possible prosecution in the training death last year of Kyle Mullen hours after completing the infamous “Hell Week”.
A Navy official says the 10 are being identified in an investigation that concluded “multiple systems failures” led to the death of Mullen, 24, and the hospitalization of three other members of his class SEAL training after a week of nonstop physical stress, much of it in the frigid waters of Southern California in February 2022. A redacted copy of the investigation, in which most names have been redacted, is posted on Thursday.
The 200-page report said a medical program designed to monitor the health of SEAL candidates was “grossly inadequate” and was the most direct cause of Mullen’s death from pneumonia.
The report also cited an increase in training intensity that produced an unusually high dropout rate, a trend that training commander Capt. Brad Geary blamed on a lack of mental toughness the current generation. Geary and his immediate superior, Capt. Brian Drechsler, then commander of the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif., are singled out for their lack of oversight, along with the program’s senior medical officer. All three men have since left their positions.
Fifty-eight members of Mullen’s SEAL candidate class started Hell Week, only 21 finished. On the Thursday of Hell Week, Mullen was in what one of his teammates called “completely messed up mode,” coughing up dark liquid but unwilling to seek medical attention for fear of being dropped from the course. Twice in the closing hours of Hell Week he was pulled from training and given oxygen. Once he had to travel from one place to another in an ambulance.
After completing Hell Week, Mullen and the other trainees were given physicals and sent to their barracks to recuperate. Mullen was declared “fit to train” although he had to be transported to the barracks in a wheelchair.
No medical personnel were available at the barracks to keep Mullen or any of his companions under observation. When he and three others began experiencing increased difficulty breathing, other sailors called the medical clinic and were told they could call 911, but they might end up going off course. When someone finally called 911, it was too late to save Mullen.
Research by the Naval Education and Training Command described a training environment that made the already notoriously difficult course even more difficult with less sleep and time for recovery. In an average class, about a third of SEAL candidates wash out in the first three weeks.
After Captain Geary took over the training, the dropout rate began to climb toward 50 percent, and civilian observers complained that SEAL instructors seemed more interested in weeding out weak performers than training -the bear. According to the report, some of the instructors, all of whom had taken the same course earlier in their careers, felt that standards had fallen and the training was resulting in poor operators.
When civilian complaints reached Geary, he told them to back off and said he believed the main reason for the high dropout rate was that today’s generation had less mental toughness. The commanding general of the SEALS, now retired Rear Admiral Hugh Wyman Howard, told the training command that it would be fine if no one got the course, as long as standards did not drop.
The results of the investigation will now be handed over to the Navy’s legal command, although one official said it was unlikely that the 10 people named in the report would end up facing a court-martial. The report also details a number of changes made to SEAL training as a result of Mullen’s death, but warns that “candidates continue to be exposed to unnecessary medical risk.”
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David Martin
