SEAL captain to face board of inquiry in trainee's death
Case against Capt. Brad Geary raises questions about steroid use and safety at Navy SEAL training
Updated
A SEAL captain will appear on Nov. 12 before a Navy board for an unprecedented hearing over his role in the 2022 death of a SEAL trainee.
Capt. Bradley Geary, former commander of the Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command, was accused of dereliction of duty for negligently failing to provide medical support and negligent command supervision, resulting in “death and grievous bodily harm,” his attorney told me. Kyle Mullen, a 24-year-old from New Jersey, died shortly after completing Hell Week in February 2022. In addition to Mullen, six of his classmates landed in the hospital after an unusually severe Hell Week.
The case against Geary will be heard by three admirals in an administrative hearing known as a board of inquiry, which will decide the fate of his 25-year military career. Boards of inquiry are sometimes called the military equivalent of employment hearings. Potential consequences include separation from the service with an other than honorable discharge and loss of all benefits, but no criminal penalties.
Steroid use is likely to be a focus of Geary’s defense. In a podcast appearance last month, the decorated SEAL captain said that the Navy has been covering up the fact that steroids played a role in Mullen’s death. A day after Mullen died, agents with the Navy Criminal Investigative Service found a cooler containing vials of human growth hormone and testosterone in his car. On Mullen’s iPhone, agents discovered text messages with Mullen discussing a bad batch of performance-enhancing drugs and complaining of pain in his rear end at an injection site.
“Kyle Mullen’s military medical record specifically identified gynecomastia as a pre-existing condition,” Geary wrote in an article published by SOFX, a special ops news site founded by a former SEAL. “Gynecomastia is a well-known side effect of long-term steroid use.” Regina Mullen, Kyle’s mother who has pushed to see someone held accountable for her son’s death, denied that her son had pre-existing gynecomastia. Regardless, she said, it’s irrelevant, as her son died of untreated acute pneumonia.
A spokesman for Navy Region Southwest in San Diego, the convening authority that is bringing the charges, declined comment.
Geary’s defense team now includes attorney Tim Parlatore, who represented former SEAL Eddie Gallagher at his 2019 war crimes trial. Gallagher was found not guilty of first-degree murder of a captive ISIS fighter and attempted murder of civilians in Iraq but was convicted of a lesser charge of posing for photos with the teenage captive’s dead body. President Trump intervened in the case to ensure that Gallagher kept his SEAL Trident and restored his rank and pay. (Parlatore was once a member of Trump’s criminal defense team but says he left last year due to infighting.)
When I reached out for comment, Parlatore told me, “We have no interest in participating in your client's PR campaign.” The famously aggressive attorney falsely accused me of “acting as a publicist” for Regina Mullen, Kyle’s mother.
Parlatore earlier took issue with my decision to publish a letter by Mark Hardman, a former Navy doctor who criticized the medical system at Naval Special Warfare. Parlatore called the letter a “false propaganda narrative” and labeled me a “disinformation peddler” for publishing it. Parlatore said he hoped Navy prosecutors were “stupid enough” to present a case along the lines of Hardman’s opinions “as it will be extraordinarily easy to eviscerate.”
Dr. Erik Ramey, a Navy commander who headed the medical department at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training in Coronado, California, will also face a separate board of inquiry on Nov. 18 before senior officers. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision to convene boards of inquiry followed a sweeping Navy investigation released last year that found that a “near-perfect storm” of missteps led to the Mullen’s death. “This investigation revealed what is correctly described as an individual and community tragedy and found failures across multiple systems that led to a number of candidates being at a high risk of serious injury,” the report found.
The report singled out the BUD/S medical department as “poorly organized, poorly integrated, and poorly led” and blasted the care provided after Hell Week as “wholly inadequate.” Five former trainees told me for an article published in Rolling Stone that the BUD/S medical staff showed negligence that bordered on recklessness by sending hurt and sick young men back to training with what they learned later were broken bones, torn cartilage, or an inability to swallow food, and other ailments.
Following the release of that report, Naval Special Warfare Command notified Geary, Ramey, and another SEAL officer that the three men should face non-judicial punishment (NJP), known as an admiral’s mast. Both Geary and Ramey refused NJP. SEAL Capt. Brian Drechsler, the former commanding officer of the Naval Special Warfare Center, accepted NJP and retired on June 1. (Drechsler was named head of operations at a planned Navy SEAL museum in San Diego.)
Geary’s request to retire from the Navy was denied. Earlier this week, 31 House Republicans, including all five former SEALs serving in Congress, signed a letter calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to intervene and allow Geary to retire honorably. The letter was first reported Friday by the New York Post.
This story was updated to add the date of Dr. Ramey’s board of inquiry, Regina Mullen’s response to Capt. Geary’s accusations about her son’s medical history, and a letter from members of Congress calling for the DoD to allow Geary to retire.
Those who accept their punishment in the NSW community always wind up rewarded after separation from the Navy. Weird how that happens. Or maybe it’s part of the NSW narrative control program.
The most difficult facts to explain will be 1)the post-Hell Week brief warning against outside medical care, 2) what appears to be an off-the-books medical record system intended to avoid Navy dive physicals by preventing documentation in MHS Genesis, 3) keeping BTC Medical records and care hidden from NSWCEN medical (see no turnover of Seaman Mullen to NSWCEN medical, 4) the appearance of unlicensed, unauthorized practice of medicine by the BTC civilian paramedic who treated Seaman Mullen, 5) the appearance of medical abandonment by the BTC civilian paramedic did not contact his medical director or any physician before discharging Seaman Mullen and did so without informed consent. Remembe, the had independently diagnosed pulmonary edema and delivered >1 hour of high flow oxygen (12-15 L O2) to a hypoxic (SpO2 82-86%) patient, 6) right ventricular hypertrophy consistent with significant pulmonary hypertension secondary to pulmonary edema and likely ARDS. This likely acute right ventricular remodeling is likely unrelated to PED use, 7) lung histopathology showing changes consistent with ARDS, 8) diarrhea while decompensating suggestive of toxic shock syndrome, 9) that if blood tests had been available, they would likely show overwhelming evidence of causality from group A strep bacteremia, and 10) that Seaman Mullen was bradycardic at time of EMS arrival and had a chance of living had the paramedics shown up just 45 minutes earlier. This would have allowed transfer to a trauma center with intubation, IV antibiotics, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Evidence suggests his life could have been saved it not for the the Senior Medical Officer’s endorsement of the post-Hell Week brief warning against obtaining outside care (again, see evasion of medical disqualification and the Navy dive physical). The NETC investigation suggests that Seama Mullen may have lived were it not for the on call provider who again discouraged junior enlisted from obtaining care for Seaman Mullen. These last missed opportunities to save Seaman Mullen are among the most tragic parts of this highly-irregular disaster.
I would confirm whether the off-the-books medical records were shared with the civilian specialty leaders when they wrote their expert opinions. If not, I would ask them to revise their opinions, taking into account the hypoxia present on the beach, treated by the paramedic. I anticipate the defense will attempt to focus on the EM specialty leader opinion discussing unusually rapid decompensation. It appears the EM specialty leader was unaware of the medical log book documenting Seaman Mullen’s hypoxia and treatment by the paramedic.
I would call an infectious disease expert to testify as to the unique danger of toxic shock syndrome and ARDS from group A strep pneumonia. I would also cite medical literature cautioning against ending bicillin prophylaxis given this risk. And I take on this EM opinion as lacking key information (the log books) and consideration of the rapid decompensation that can occur with toxic shock syndrome. This needs to be supported by an infectious disease expert and a pathologist testifying to the lung biopsies obtained at autopsy.
I would also confirm exactly what the BUMED standard of care investigation investigated. It is likely that the investigation found that the standard of care was met at the time of the post-Hell Week medical checks. I would ask expert witnesses whether advising patients to avoid outside medical help is standard. I would not allow the defense to extrapolate a singular finding to the entirety of the care during Hell Week.
I would hammer down on the why behind all of this. Why were the systems structured this way? I believe they were intentionally structured this way to avoid medical disqualification under the Navy dive physical. Instead of coordinating reform between WARCOM, BUMED, and any relevant parties, keeping medical conditions and treatment out of MHS Genesis appears to have been the path of least resistance; after understanding the “why,” you see that this level of medical risk was not necessary to train Seals but to avoid medical disqualification. The narrative of “this was necessary to keep America safe” falls apart.
I would introduce evidence of how the Army medically supervises similar high-risk training for its SF combat divers in Key West, FL, to show that this was not normal.
Finally, I would call the Navy Surgeon General, RADM Darin K. Via, to the witness stand, a physician with impeccable credentials, previously serving as the CENTCOM surgeon and an expert in anesthesia and critical care. I would walk the Surgeon General through these facts and others in painstaking detail and ask whether this is standard in America or the Department of Defense. I would ask the Surgeon General if he has kids. Then, I would ask whether this is the medical system he would want for his children.