The famously rigorous Hell Week program which stretches Navy SEAL candidates to their limits has seen relatively few deaths over the course of modern history. But when Navy enlistee Kyle Mullen died after Hell Week two years ago, the nation was led to believe that training conditions under Captain Bradley Geary were instrumental in his demise.

Yet documents exclusively provided to The Sentinel by a member of Congress indicate that the Navy misled the public about the situation, lying to the American people in official documents about the role which performance enhancing drugs played in the death of Mullen while effectively halting the military careers of Geary and others overseeing Hell Week at the time.

The investigations and public statements surrounding the death of Mullen come as the American people lose trust in senior military leadership, and as an increasing number of veterans and service members voice concerns about the integrity of top brass.

‘Chose to tell only half the story’

Geary, a Christian husband and father of four, has served in the Navy through the more than two decades since his graduation from the United States Naval Academy. After deployments across four continents with four separate SEAL teams, Geary received the highly prestigious James Bond Stockdale Award for Inspirational Leadership and commanded the SEAL training facility in Coronado, California, the site where Hell Week tests potential SEALs six times every year. When questioned for this article, he stressed to The Sentinel that all of his positions on these matters are his own and not representative of the Navy.

Doctors consistently monitor candidates for Hell Week due to the physical demands of the program, which involves more than twenty hours of daily training for five and a half consecutive days. Mullen, a former captain of the Yale football team who transferred to Monmouth University for his senior year, had unsuccessfully attempted Hell Week in March 2021. He completed the program in February 2022 but passed away hours after the training concluded.

An autopsy conducted by a military medical examiner said Mullen died of “acute pneumonia due to Streptococcus pyogenes,” symptoms shared by three other candidates hospitalized that week after enduring the frigid maritime conditions and intense exercise, even as candidates are provided with prophylactic antibiotics throughout the training.

The initial investigation into his death, completed by an inspector general representative to Naval Special Warfare, said in July 2022 that Mullen “died of cardiac arrest most likely caused by acute pneumonia in the presence of cardiomegaly,” while “other contributing factors include the use of prohibited performance enhancing drugs,” swimming induced pulmonary edema, and the demands of the training he had just completed. The document added that even as his autopsy “did not list” performance enhancing drug use “as a contributing factor,” there was “substantial evidence” that the twenty-four-year-old had recently been using the substances.

An independent review by a three-star Admiral and his medical and legal team concurred with those findings. When that report was published and sent to the office of now-retired Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday, the report was ordered to be rescoped and recompleted.

Officials with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service had meanwhile discovered vials of substances such as injectable testosterone believed to be from Pakistan in his vehicle, as well as texts on his phone in which Mullen had discussed the use of illegal drugs with four other individuals. Mullen had also mentioned an adverse reaction at the injection site, pointing to possible contamination of the illegal substances, which are explicitly prohibited by the Navy. The vials of injectable substances were also not tested or verified for content.

The pathologists who ran the autopsy indeed did not test for any of the substances found in his possession, instead opting for a standard toxicology report of common illegal drugs even as he displayed symptoms consistent with use of the substances. His heart was swollen to 700 grams, which is much larger than the typical adult male heart size of 300 grams to 350 grams.

The new investigation conducted by Naval Special Warfare Command, which concluded in September 2022, nevertheless found that Mullen died “in the line of duty, not due to his own misconduct.” But five of the six physicians asked for their opinion during the investigation concurred with the assertion that performance enhancing drugs were “possibly” or “likely” a factor, while the sixth abstained from providing an opinion on the matter.

The Navy issued a press release in October 2022 which repeated that Mullen died in the line of duty and not due to his own misconduct, expressing condolences to his family. The document explicitly said that “performance enhancing drugs were not a contributing cause.”

But an email sent to superior officers by Rear Admiral Brett Mietus, which was provided to The Sentinel by the member of Congress, admitted on the same day of the press release that the document was changed at the request of Regina Mullen, the mother of Kyle Mullen. She was “provided a copy of the planned press release and requested that the Navy put in writing” that the death of her son “was not attributed” to performance enhancing drugs, since she had “received several direct and hostile messages about her son” regarding his drug use.

That email was sent to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and dozens of other senior officers. The member of Congress told The Sentinel that the statement in the press release saying “performance enhancing drugs were not a contributing cause” was a direct lie to the American public and a violation of military Joint Ethics Regulations.

When asked by The Sentinel whether the Navy also sees the discrepancy as a Joint Ethics violation, a spokesperson for the Navy merely repeated the conclusion found in the release: "According to the Armed Forces medical examiner’s autopsy report, Mullen died of acute pneumonia with cardiomegaly as a contributing factor in the hours after successfully completing Hell Week and performance enhancing drugs were not a contributing cause of Mullen’s death." The autopsy, however, did not mention performance enhancing drugs or test for the substances.

Yet another investigation, published by the Naval Education and Training Command in March 2023, found that the death of Mullen came from “a near perfect storm of converging factors” that accumulated “unidentified and unmitigated risk.” The document reiterated that “Mullen’s death was not caused by PEDs use” but said the investigation “revealed strong indicators of PEDs use” by some SEAL candidates, noting the incentives to enhance performance in order to endure through Hell Week. Jason Wareham, an attorney for Geary, believes the press release was one of several actions implemented by top Navy leadership to intentionally bias the investigation away from considering the role of performance enhancing drugs.

Geary told The Sentinel that in his own experience the use of performance enhancers among SEAL candidates ebbs and flows over time despite their explicit prohibition. While the death of Mullen occurred in a period marked by a more elevated rate of steroid use, Geary says that Naval Special Warfare had asked over the course of a decade for additional authorities and resources to test for the substances, but were repeatedly denied by senior Navy officials.

Three members of the House Armed Services Committee submitted an inquiry to the Navy regarding their investigations in June 2023, expressing concern that the probes were potentially “misdirected and mishandled.” They asked whether the autopsy was sufficiently thorough, whether there were discrepancies with respect to performance enhancing drug use as a cause of the death, and whether Regina Mullen was permitted to shape the contents of the release.

The lawmakers never received an answer despite setting a deadline in the middle of July 2023. When asked about the inquiry by The Sentinel, a spokesperson for the Navy said they do not comment on correspondence with Congress.

Yet Geary, alongside the former commanding officer of the Naval Special Warfare Center and the senior medical officer for Hell Week, were informed in September 2023 that they would face nonjudicial punishment over the death of Mullen. They could be demoted or face other administrative consequences, while the sanctions would likely prevent any future promotions.

Wareham more recently learned that Naval Special Warfare has possessed possible exculpatory information since September 2023, according to a copy of an email provided to The Sentinel. The exculpatory information appears to involve individuals who say they injected performance enhancing drugs with Mullen: if offered immunity, they appear to be willing to admit that they saw Mullen inject the substances after medical checks were complete and hours before his death. Geary and the other officers therefore appear to have been denied their due process rights since they were not informed of that offer of proof by Naval Special Warfare.

Geary submitted a formal complaint, a copy of which was provided to The Sentinel, in January 2024 alleging defamation as well as “gross negligence and falsification of a government document by knowingly publishing false information to create and foster a prejudice and bias against my leadership and command.” Geary submitted the document with evidence of his assertions to the office of Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti but has not received a reply.

“They deliberately chose to tell only half the story,” Geary wrote in the complaint with respect to Rear Admiral Peter Garvin and Rear Admiral Benjamin Reynolds, who signed the Naval Education and Training Command investigation. “As with every other accusation contained in this complaint, they were both either incredibly negligent and derelict in their duty, or deliberately malicious in choosing which information to include and exclude from their investigation.”

Geary added in the document that the Navy issued the “false information to the open press” before offering him a chance to respond, marking “deliberate character assassination.”

“They are directly responsible for these wrongs against me and my command. Their actions resulted in personal detriment and harm to me, my family, and others,” he said. “It was capricious, unjust, discriminatory against me, and an abuse of their discretionary authority.”

‘They deserve better’

Wareham contended to The Sentinel that the mishandling of the Mullen investigations points toward a culture of minimal accountability among top military brass, who have often preferred to shift responsibility for leadership failures to those under their command. Geary said he is concerned that “we aren’t willing to publicly acknowledge the truth as an institution.”

“We have some good Admirals out there. We have some good Captains out there,” Geary said. “We can’t afford to compromise the trust placed in our leadership by the American people.”

Wareham, who has been practicing military law for nearly fifteen years, also commented to The Sentinel that there has been “an element of unlawful command influence” in almost all of the most serious court martial cases he has handled throughout the course of his career.

“We’ve created an elite cadre of stars and birds who think whatever they do that disadvantages a court martial or whatever they do to inject corruption in favor of the institution is perfectly okay,” Wareham said. “They’ll retire without any consequences every time.”

The past several years have been marked by declining trust in the military amid a perceived spread of progressive ideology and forced diversity among senior leaders. American forces withdrew from Afghanistan nearly three years ago, failing to establish a successful government and allowing for vast amounts of weaponry to fall into the hands of the Taliban. All of these phenomena correspond with a significant recruiting shortfall across multiple branches.

Wareham contended that this case has already been perpetuated for an unreasonable amount of time when compared with other cases he has represented. Geary told The Sentinel that he has not yet been permitted to “unconditionally retire in lieu of dragging this out in further administrative proceedings that will unduly burden Navy time and resources.”

“Because it’s not a punitive decision they’re making, I’m not provided military counsel,” Geary added. “This is a way for them to cause the service member cost.”

Foundations such as the Christian legal advocacy nonprofit Stand With Warriors have therefore been financially assisting Geary with his defense. Davis Younts, the retired Air Force JAG who leads Stand With Warriors, also told The Sentinel that lack of integrity among senior leaders is at play.

“I believe that the Navy is seeking to eliminate Captain Geary because he refused to compromise his integrity and simply go along with the official narrative,” he said. “This has become an issue of an outstanding officer who has been made a scapegoat by corrupt Biden officials in the Pentagon. His fight for the truth is a fight against the weakening of our military by woke progressives who care more about their agenda than defending our nation.”

Geary repeatedly emphasized the role his own Christian faith plays in ensuring that justice is achieved and that military leaders are held accountable in future cases. He contends that his instructor cadre served honorably and professionally but were unjustly vilified. “They deserve better,” Geary said, “and deserve somebody standing up in their defense.”

“I feel, as a Christian, God has called me for this very purpose at this time and place,” Geary continued. “We’ve gone back and looked at every decision we’ve made that has brought us to this crossroads, and every single one has been based on faith-driven decisions, morality, and ethics. I’m not claiming to be something I’m not, and I accept responsibility for my command. I’ve made my mistakes. I’m a flawed human being like everyone else. But we’ve done our best to make those decisions deliberately and based on our principles and our values.”