Navy SEAL commanders may face board of inquiry in BUD/S death

Two officers involved in training Navy SEALs have been told to show why they should be allowed to stay in the service following the 2022 death of a SEAL candidate.
BUD/S
FILE: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) candidates attempt to pass the surf zone during training on May 20, 2020. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Anthony W. Walker/Released/US Navy) Petty Officer 1st Class Anthony

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Two officers who oversaw the Navy’s infamously difficult training school for would-be SEALs now face the possible end of their careers over the 2022 death of a recruit following the grueling “Hell Week” phase of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S.

Capt. Bradley Geary and Cmdr. Erik Ramey have been told they must “show cause” to a Navy board why they should be allowed to remain in the Navy in connection with the 2022 death of  SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen, who died hours after finishing Hell Week after SEAL medics missed pneumonia he’d developed during the week, Task & Purpose has learned.

Both Geary, who commanded the Naval Special Warfare Center’s Basic Training Command, which directly oversees BUD/S, and Ramey, the center’s former senior medical officer, must now decide whether to appear before a board of inquiry or submit their retirement or resignation packages.

Mullen died on Feb. 4, 2022 after completing Hell Week. His cause of death was ruled as pneumonia. Although human growth hormone and other medications were found in Mullen’s car after his death along with syringes and needles, a Naval Education and Training Command investigation determined that Mullen had “died in the line of duty, and not due to his own misconduct.”

The Ice Man Substack by Seth Hettena first reported that Geary and Ramey may force a board of inquiry. The Navy did not provide any specific information about what type of administrative actions the two officers may face.

“As a result of the investigation into the oversight and management of BUD/S Class 352 and the surrounding circumstances of the death of Seaman Mullen, the Navy is proceeding with accountability actions,” Navy Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins told Task & Purpose. “Given these actions are administrative and ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

SEAL Candidates Train with Logs
Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) icandidates participate in strength and conditioning training on May 18, 2020. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Anthony W. Walker/US Navy)

Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Anthony W. Walker/US Navy.

News that the two officers could face a board of inquiry comes as Geary spoke at length about Mullen’s death and the ensuing investigations on Monday’s episode of The Shawn Ryan Show, a YouTube program hosted by a Navy SEAL veteran. Geary claims during the interview that drugs may have played a role in Mullen’s death and questions a final Navy investigation that discounted the junior sailor’s misconduct.. But Mullen’s mother told Task & Purpose that her son died of pneumonia that Navy medical professionals overseen by Geary should have caught and treated.

“It’s undeniable what my son died of,” Regina Mullen said.

Implicated in Mullen’s death

The Navy told reporters in September 2023 that Ramey and Geary would face an admiral’s mast for dereliction of duty in connection with Mullen’s death along with Capt. Brian Drechsler, who served as commanding officer of the Naval Special Warfare Center’s Basic Training Command in February 2022.

But Geary subsequently declined nonjudicial punishment, his attorney Jason Wareham told Task & Purpose.

Now, Geary is accused of failing to properly supervise medical personnel, leading to Mullen’s grievous bodily injury or death, Wareham said.  This is the first time that Geary has been directly implicated in Mullen’s death.

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“It’s a profound change, and it’s a change that we generally believe was made at the very top, but we don’t yet have evidence of that,” Wareham said. “We believe that we’ll be able to show easily that he was not derelict, that he did not fail to supervise, and that his performance in the Navy was anything but substandard.”

Wareham said he and Geary have until mid-August to decide how to respond to the Navy’s notice that he show cause for retention. He added that his experience has shown that the Navy often refers sailors to boards of inquiry when it feels it cannot win at court-martial.

Should a board of inquiry decide that Geary should not remain in the Navy, he could potentially face an other-than-honorable discharge, said Wareham, who has reached out to lawmakers about Geary’s case.

Navy SEAL candidates train at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) in June 2023. Three senior officers who were in charge of BUD/S in early 2022 now face charges of dereliction of duty stemming from the death of a candidate during the school’s Hell Week. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dylan Lavin/U.S. Navy).

Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dylan Lavin.

“We have been working with Congress consistently throughout this,” Wareham said. “Congress is incredibly upset about how this investigation was managed and the choices by the secretary of the Navy.”

Jeremiah Sullivan, Ramey’s attorney, said that the Navy has previously affirmed that his client fulfilled all his responsibilities as the Naval Special Warfare Center’s senior medical officer when Mullen went through BUD/S.

“The Navy Bureau of Medicine has already conducted an extensive investigation and concluded that Dr. Ramey met the standard of care,” Sullivan told Task & Purpose.

Possible drug use

In an episode of The Shawn Ryan Show on Monday, Geary disputed statements by Navy officials that Mullen died of pneumonia that he developed during training that was unrelated to the performance enhancing drugs found in his car.


Geary said Mullen and other SEAL candidates had been given prophylactic antibiotics to stave off bacterial pneumonia and other diseases, and Mullen was given an extensive medical exam shortly before he died, during which doctors identified some raspiness in his lungs, which is common for SEAL candidates after they finish Hell Week.

He also claimed that the initial line of duty investigation found that performance enhancing drugs were likely a contributing factor in Mullen’s death, but officials in the Pentagon later changed the investigation’s findings to rule out drugs as a causal factor in how Mullen died despite medical evidence to the contrary.

Investigators did note that they found text messages on Mullen’s phone about using performance enhancing drugs, such as one in which he said his buttocks became swollen following the injection of a bad vial of such drugs.

But the pathologist who conducted Mullen’s autopsy did not test for the types of performance enhancing drugs that were later discovered in his car, said Geary, who claimed this was part of a pattern of Navy officials ignoring evidence of Mullen using drugs to rule his death in the line of duty.

Navy SEAL BUD/S training
U.S. Navy SEAL candidates participate in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training. SEALs are the maritime component of U.S. Special Forces and are trained to conduct a variety of operations from the sea, air and land. (Petty Officer 1st Class Abe McNatt/U.S. Navy)

“I’ve noticed a trend in the United States government of when somebody dies, there is a desire to get to the conclusion that they died in the line of duty,” Geary said. “The reason is: The next of kin get the SGLI [Servicemembers Group Life Insurance] life insurance at that point. If his death was associated with misconduct, using illegal substances on government property, well now it gets debatable whether he died in the line of duty or not. So, all of a sudden, the life insurance is off the table.”

‘‘It’s all in the evidence!’

Regina Mullen, a registered nurse, said the issue of whether her son used performance enhancing drugs is irrelevant because she had a medical examiner perform an autopsy on Mullen that showed he died of untreated bacterial pneumonia.

She also said that three other Navy SEAL candidates who were training with her son also became sickened with pneumonia, including one who had to be intubated for 24 hours.

“They are lying when they are saying my son was hiding his condition because he got sick on Wednesday of Hell Week,” Regina Mullen said. “He did try to get help Thursday night leaving the tent. He was told to get back in the tent, told he was being monitored on some white board – which his name was never on that white board.”

By the Friday morning of Hell Week, her son was so sick that he was twice given oxygen for crackling lungs, she said. An admiral was late to the ceremony to mark the end of Hell Week, so Mullen and the other candidates had to endure more training in the water, during which her son was spitting up blood and struggling to breathe. At that point, both Geary and Ramey could see that her son had to be carried because he could not walk on his own.

Navy SEAL candidates participate in “surf immersion” during Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training at Naval Special Warfare (NSW) Center in Coronado, Calif., May 4, 2020. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Anthony Walker/US Navy)

A Navy veteran who was on active duty when Mullen finished Hell Week told Task & Purpose that he checked on Mullen after he was medically cleared. The veteran said he twice called BUD/S medical to report that Mullen needed medical attention, but he was told no one was available and Mullen would be dropped from the program if he received care from outside BUD/S medical.

The veteran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the medical professionals who performed the checks simply asked the Navy SEAL candidates “Are you alive” rather than performing actual tests.

Regina Mullen said that the medical professionals should have known from her son’s symptoms that he had fluid in his lungs. Still, he was allowed to lie down to rest.

“Because my son laid flat, because the mattresses on the floor are flat, the fluid went up to his esophagus and cut off his oxygen,” she said. “He had an anoxic brain – it’s all in the evidence! He was brain dead. They tried to revive him several times.”

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