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Government Corruption
Death in Navy SEAL training exposes a culture of brutality, cheating, and drugs
2022-08-31
[Boston National] The elite force’s selection course is so punishing that few make it through, and many of those who do resort to illicit tactics.

Kyle Mullen always had the natural drive and talent that made success look easy. Until he tried out for the Navy SEALs.

The 24-year-old arrived on the California coast in January for the SEALs’ punishing selection course in the best shape of his life — even better than when he was a state champion defensive end in high school or the captain of the football team at Yale.

But by the middle of the course’s third week — a continual gut punch of physical and mental hardship, sleep deprivation and hypothermia that the SEALs call Hell Week — the 6-foot-4 athlete from Manalapan, New Jersey, was dead-eyed with exhaustion, riddled with infection and coughing up blood from lungs that were so full of fluid that others who were there said later that he sounded like he was gargling.

The course began with 210 men. By the middle of Hell Week, 189 had quit or been brought down by injury. But Mullen kept on slogging for days, spitting blood all the while. The instructors and medics conducting the course, perhaps out of admiration for his grit, did not stop him.

And he made it. When he struggled out of the cold ocean at the end of Hell Week, SEAL leaders shook his hand, gave him a pizza and told him to get some rest. Then he went back to his barracks and laid down on the floor. A few hours later, his heart stopped beating and he died.
The USN definitely has a problem. Author Matthew Cole pretty well lays it out in 'Code over Country.' Not a happy story. Not a happy story at all.
Posted by:Besoeker

#16  #13W/M I will go to my last day appalled at the casual disposal of some of the most motivated men I have ever known in similar circumstances. Warriors to the core who had a simple bad physical break and were more than salvageable.

Amen
Posted by: Frank G   2022-08-31 20:42  

#15  #12 Well Skid, few swallowed more, whole, or deeper than I, I'm just not sayimg it was right. Mission first, Mission only, Mission to the end. I know (knew) that tune. I am lucky to be alive with as many functioning features as I have.

#13 W/M I will go to my last day appalled at the casual disposal of some of the most motivated men I have ever known in similar circumstances. Warriors to the core who had a simple bad physical break and were more than salvageable.

They say nice things about the guys who make it, and it is mostly deserved. But the guys who often don't often showed unflinching courage and real heart, American heart. Not always, but I'm not referencing quitters or chow thieves.

There was something of a culture that vaguely suggested that those who made it were somehow superior or chosen in spite of obvious chance. I always wondered if I was really as tough or as good as some of my classmates who went down to happenstance.
Posted by: Cesare   2022-08-31 19:28  

#14  Was he vaxx'd?

Now, that's a good question.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2022-08-31 18:00  

#13  I feel bad for him and his family. The SEALS are NOT what they used to be, and I have known more than a few. The ones I met/worked with were mostly demigods. Awesome. Some were very much not.

That said, I was a hypothermia casualty in Ranger School in the Everglades when it froze over. Plus a dislocated knee.

People died in this class (maybe 3-4). I hate cold water. Ignorant evil CO. It was completely preventable.

It was the beginning of the end for me.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike   2022-08-31 16:48  

#12  Man stuff do indeed be hard and in the end that's the main attraction.

Yeah.
The coughing, choking, shortness of breath and vomiting with blood didn't bother me as much as being busted at the portal with my home made trac kit, a razor knife and 3" of 1/2" tubing.

Mission first.
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-08-31 16:18  

#11  I have questions too. Died of pneumonia, or with pneumonia? And the paraphernalia in the car, its not like he was sneaking out to the parking lot to get a bump.

Yale:

The university requires all students, faculty, staff, and postdoctoral/postgraduate trainees — other than those with an approved medical or religious exemption — to be fully vaccinated and to obtain a booster shot within 14 days of eligibility.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2022-08-31 15:19  

#10  Well said, TW and SwksvolFF. Man stuff do indeed be hard and in the end that's the main attraction. I feel bad for his mother. She's not thinking about the football star or wannabe bad ass, she's thinking about her little boy. True, he grew up with all the once normal masculine tendencies but it's inevitable she has those feelings.

I'm no Navy guy, but the Teams aren't what once they were. There is an increasingly pronounced streak of mobster-think. They tend to lay it off on a 'culture that devalues sleep'. Possibly. But I think it worth questioning their place, their motivation in this scene.

'The Navy needs an active land force'. You mean like the Marine Corps? No, we need elite soldiers for rescues and assaults. And, the Rangers, Delta, and Special Forces Regiment were otherwise occupied...doing what exactly?

Probably outdated thinking, but the only reason I can think for there to be a sailor in the Hindu Kush is as a corpsman for the Marines, or Naval aviator who ought not have a ground role.
Posted by: Cesare   2022-08-31 13:55  

#9  Some years ago, Mr. Wife left home against my advice with untreated walking pneumonia — because he didn’t have time to spend waiting in the ER for antibiotics in the midst of preparations — to do a two-week, round-the-world business trip. Back-to-back meetings all day followed by business dinners into the wee hours so everything and everyone could be heard and told. Very efficient. Upon his return he ended up in the hospital with IV antibiotics, exactly as the idiot had planned for. Possibly strong hysterics on my part could have persuaded him to let me take him to the ER for antibiotics before he left, but I’m not sure even that would have worked.

Not within miles of being as challenging as Hell Week, but for those for whom achieving the goal is the only thing that matters, ignoring warning signs is just the killing reality.
Posted by: trailing wife   2022-08-31 13:04  

#8  Maybe. To play Devil's Advocate, I'm sure coughing and such is part of the deal, and so it bit cheeks/tongues. Hell, I've coughed up blood doing less, so if the guy wasn't flat out puking it up, who knows? Know of regular people, less than physical specimens if you will, pass off pneumonia until they were in the emergency room.

Article says that only afterwards were teammates like, "yeah, did hear him having troubles now that you mention it."
Posted by: swksvolFF   2022-08-31 11:03  

#7  when America can not lose, they send these guys

LOVE IT!
Posted by: Skidmark   2022-08-31 10:54  

#6  I'm not a medical professional, but it seems to me the corpsman should have pulled him when he started coughing up blood.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia    2022-08-31 10:44  

#5  “They killed him,” his mother, Regina Mullen, who is a registered nurse, said in an interview. “They say it’s training, but it’s torture. And then they didn’t even give them the proper medical care. They treat these guys worse than they are allowed to treat prisoners of war.”

Thanks, mommy.

The training is supposed to take you to your limits.

Man Things be tough. The cerebral things too, punching a 12 hour shift on a slide rule to properly span a bridge, etc.

A few hours later, his heart stopped beating and he died.

Was he vaxx'd?
Posted by: swksvolFF   2022-08-31 10:24  

#4  Ref #2: Milley's subversion of the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act is another BFO that says a whole house cleaning is in order.

The subversion of a ..... subversion. No longer responsive to the "civilian leadership" or Big Army. New day, new handler.

Whatever the COS or Deputy COS wants, he gets. Embassy party at 1900. The van is leaving at 1830. Plenty of Monkey Shoulder to go around. No weapons, no cellies.

Posted by: Besoeker   2022-08-31 09:57  

#3  The training issue has little to do with the Navy leadership and the comment before mine. The training is supposed to take you to your limits. The Army had this issue with SF and Ranger training a few years ago. The medical monitoring needs to get better. These men, as well as the rangers and SF, will never quit, its not in their nature. The 90% failure rates are about average across SOCOM. SF has a song about the 97% failure rates. Rangers have RIP to help screen out the failures. The 160th recruitment process screens out over 90%. All this is for a reason, when America can not lose, they send these guys. Training them is costly, in money and sometimes in lives.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2022-08-31 08:59  

#2  The problem became obvious when the head of the SEALs refused to carry out President Trump's orders on that one servicemenber they were railroading. It's just not the SEALs. Milley's subversion of the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act is another BFO that says a whole house cleaning is in order.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2022-08-31 05:51  

#1  SEAL teams used to be cool. But now they are nothing more than mafia enforcers for a corrupt organization that extorts the world. Al Capone only operated in three districts of Chicago, these people operate over the entire planet.
Posted by: Sonny de Medici5342   2022-08-31 03:15  

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