What is BUD/S teaching future SEALs?
The death of a a 24-year-old trainee exposes a culture of cheating and steroids at the SEAL's vaunted training program.
More than a year has passed since Navy officers showed up at Regina Mullen’s New Jersey home to tell her that her 24-year-old son, Kyle, had died in the first phase of Navy SEAL training.
But her phone still rings at all hours of the day and night.
On the other end of the line are some of the young men who went through training with her son. Or their parents. The young men tell her what Kyle meant to them. The parents want to talk about what the Navy SEALs did to their children.
Kyle Mullen was star athlete with a 4.0 GPA in high school. A natural leader who encouraged others. Kyle went to Yale on a scholarship. He was named captain of the football team. After college, he enlisted in the Navy determined to become a SEAL.
The path to joining this elite fraternity of warriors runs through Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training in Coronado, California. BUD/S, as it's known, is one of the world's toughest entrance exams. It a 21-week test of mental and physical stamina that few can endure. Only about one out of every five candidates makes it through BUD/S.
Kyle’s friends from training tell his mom he was well-liked. He was funny. People enjoyed being around him. He was elected leader of his boat crew—a half dozen or so men who must carry a heavy rubber raft everywhere. Bring it on. That was Kyle’s attitude to the grueling training. Let’s get through this. “He was too good for them,” Regina Mullen recalled one of them saying.
“They all tell me that,” she says. “Many guys have tattoos for Kyle on their arms so they will never forget him.”
At Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, the fallout from Kyle’s death continues. Last week, Navy SEAL Captain Brian Drechsler, the commander of the Naval Special Warfare Center where BUD/S is held, was relieved of command ahead of schedule.
Drechsler, nicknamed “Beef” from his days as a lineman at the Naval Academy, was one of three Navy officers who received letters of reprimand in the wake of Kyle’s death. The others were SEAL Captain Brad Geary, commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare’s Basic Training Command, and Dr. Erik Ramey, a radiologist who headed the BUD/S medical department. Commanders did not directly blame the three officers for Kyle Mullen’s death.
Kyle’s death has exposed a culture of cheating and steroid use inside the Navy SEAL’s vaunted training program. About 40 trainees either tested positive for steroids or admitted to using them.
“Many would-be SEALs had come to believe that the course was too hard to complete without drugs,” David Phillips wrote in a lengthy story about Kyle Mullen’s death that was published in The New York Times.
If prospective SEALs believe they can’t make it through training unless they use performance-enhancing drugs forbidden under Defense Department rules, then what is BUD/S teaching them? Is Naval Special Warfare selecting for cheaters and rule-breakers? Are these the kinds of special operations troops we want making split-second, life-or-death decisions with profound moral consequences?
A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command declined to comment.
The Navy Education and Training Command is finishing an investigation into Kyle’s death as well as the “broader circumstances” that were raised by it. Findings are due to be released in coming weeks.
“Kyle’s death will not be in vain.” Rear Admiral Keith Davids, the head of Naval Special Warfare Command said last year. “We have a moral obligation to learn everything we can from Kyle’s tragic death so that we can ensure the safety of all future candidates.” The Navy says 10 people have lost their lives in BUD/S training over the years.
The revelations about steroids have been painful for Regina Mullen. Steroids and syringes were found in Kyle’s car but she says her son wasn’t using them. Two toxicology tests and brain tissue sampling found no traces of the substances found in his car. The Navy’s investigation determined that steroids were not a contributing factor in his death.
The steroids found in Kyle’s car may not have been his. He was letting other trainees use his car as a place to store things outside the watchful eyes of instructors, his mother says. “My analogy is: If I lend my car to someone and they leave a pack of cigarettes, does that mean I smoke?” Regina Mullen told me. Nevertheless, news reports have stated that Kyle was using supplements before his death.
In November 2021, Kyle had called home. “Mom, everyone’s doing steroids,” Regina Mullen says her son told her. “I’m thinking of doing it.” Through all his years of football and basketball, Kyle had never done steroids; he used to make fun of people who did. But there was no denying that steroids had given the BUD/S trainees who used them a definitive edge over those who didn’t.
Kyle told his mother he was being encouraged to take them. Who was encouraging him? “I don’t know it exactly for sure,” Regina Mullen told me. “He was saying ‘they.’ I don’t know who ‘they’ were. ‘They’ told him: ‘you’re not going to get through it without the steroids.’
Regina Mullen told him not to listen to ‘them,’ whoever they were. She is a nurse and she knew the havoc steroids could wreak on the body. Kyle said the treatment cost a lot and he didn’t have a lot of money. His mom refused to pay for it. She reminded Kyle that one of his friends had made it through BUD/S without steroids, and he listened.
The supplements found in Kyle’s car included the steroids testosterone and Anastrobol and the erectile dysfunction medication, Viagra. SEALs use Viagra to treat Swimming-induced pulmonary edema or SIPE. It’s a rare condition in the general population, but it is seen frequently in BUD/S.
In January 2022, Kyle had developed SIPE, a potentially life-threatening condition when the lungs fill with fluid during physically-demanding swims. The ocean temperatures in San Diego in January average 60 degrees. He was put on oxygen and continued training.
On February 4, 2022, Kyle successfully completed “Hell Week.” Over five days of nearly non-stop exertion and little sleep, Kyle and his fellow trainees were pushed to the brink of mental and physical collapse. Like all trainees, he was given a routine medical exam when he finished. A medical officer reported hearing abnormal sounds in Kyle’s lungs. But he was cleared to continue training. He returned to the barracks in a wheelchair because his legs had given out from the endless running.
Kyle began coughing up a pink, frothy sputum that was a telltale sign of SIPE. He coughed up enough fluid to fill a 32-ounce Gatorade bottle. He got progressively worse. Kyle started gasping for breath as his lungs filled with fluid. His skin turned blue. The BUD/S medical staff had gone home so a concerned fellow trainee called 911. Kyle had no detectable pulse when civilian paramedics arrived.
Another trainee who successfully completed Hell Week along with Kyle was hospitalized in stable condition, the Navy said.
An autopsy determined that the cause of Kyle Mullen’s death was acute pneumonia, but his mother blames the toxic leadership at Naval Special Warfare and lack of medical care for trainees.
More than a year later, Regina Mullen is still speaking out. That has made her a voice for the voiceless. She heard recently from the mother of a 21-year-old who was forced to drop out of BUD/S with severe hip and groin pain. The young man’s mother says her son may never run again because he wasn’t medically treated for his injuries during training.
“Every day that goes by you’re allowing them to torture people,” Regina Mullen says.