Navy Drops Disciplinary Efforts Against 2 Navy Officers After Death of SEAL Candidate Kyle Mullen

The Navy has decided to drop its accountability efforts against the last two officers who were faulted over the death of Navy SEAL recruit Kyle Mullen in 2022.

The service’s top personnel boss, Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, decided on Friday to stop the boards of inquiry for Capt. Brad Geary, the commander of the Navy SEAL training program, and Cmdr. Erik Ramey, the school’s top doctor, at the time of Mullen’s death, according to documents provided to Military.com by lawyers for the two men.

The Navy had set out to hold four officers accountable for Mullen’s death, as well as fix a deeply problematic culture that was revealed by a scathing investigation. But the end of the two boards of inquiry means that, more than two years later, no one will face any serious disciplinary action over the incident.

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A Navy spokesman said that, “following the investigations into the oversight and management of BUD/s Class 352 and the surrounding circumstances of the death of Seaman Mullen, the Navy pursued administrative actions for accountability,” but noted that “the process for determining those actions has concluded.”

Geary and Ramey were two of four sailors who drew the attention of Navy leadership in the wake of Mullen’s death during the “Hell Week” portion of the SEAL training known as BUD/s.

An investigation run by a Navy command that was completely separate from the SEAL community revealed troubling issues with the culture at BUD/s. Investigators said they found that the staff was overzealous and ran largely unchecked, while students were so determined to pass that they would either lie to doctors or turn to doping.

That investigation also focused on Geary and his leadership since he had been made aware of problems with the program that were leading to more recruits than usual being dropped from the course.

After the investigation was made public, the Navy decided to hold the two medical officers — Ramey and an unnamed sailor who was the medical duty officer the night of Mullen’s death — as well as Geary and his boss, Capt. Brian Drechsler, accountable by taking them to Admiral’s Mast.

A Navy official told Military.com that Drechsler’s mast, held in October 2023, resulted in dismissal of all charges; in June, Drechsler announced his honorable retirement from the Navy in a social media post.

Rolling Stone reported that the unnamed medical duty officer had been recommended for a letter of censure from Navy leadership, but it’s not clear whether that letter was ever issued, and the sailor has since retired, as well.

However, Geary and Ramey dug in and refused to go to mast, with Geary’s lawyer telling Military.com in August that they felt they wouldn’t get a fair hearing.

Since masts like the ones Geary and Ramey were set to face are nonjudicial punishments — they don’t involve many due-process protections or a jury — service members have the right to refuse them.

In a letter shared with Military.com, Geary and his lawyer told the commander of Naval Special Warfare in December 2023 that they refused the mast because they had a “strong reason to believe a guilty verdict has been predetermined.”

So, instead, Geary and Ramey headed to boards of inquiry — quasi-criminal proceedings that, while not formal trials, are still governed by federal rules and could impose significant consequences on the two men.

While those boards were pending, Geary began to litigate his case in public, telling Military.com in August that he questioned the validity of that outside Navy investigation and argued that performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs, may have played a role in Mullen’s death.

He also enlisted a host of Republican lawmakers to advocate on his behalf to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

In a letter dated Dec. 9, 13 Republican lawmakers told Austin that they felt Geary and Ramey’s cases had “serious procedural deficiencies, investigational failures, and apparent conflicts of interest” and called for Austin to cancel the boards of inquiry, saying that “at the very least” they should be “postponed and reevaluated by the next administration in January 2025.”

During his prior term, President-elect Donald Trump took particular note of the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, whose teammates accused him of war crimes during a tumultuous deployment to Iraq in 2017.

Gallagher was acquitted of fatally stabbing a wounded detainee but convicted of posing for a photograph with the ISIS prisoner’s corpse. Trump intervened in the case to lessen the punishment for Gallagher and prevented the Navy from stripping him of his SEAL title.

The letters that Geary and Ramey received said that Cheeseman had reviewed their cases again and, “after careful consideration, determined that [they][ are no longer required to show cause for retention.”

Regina Mullen, the mother of the dead recruit, told Military.com in August that she didn’t want to see Geary jailed, but “I figured if they could just lower his rank, force him to retire, and he can’t come back — to me, that was fair enough.”

Military.com reached out to her for a reaction on the news that Geary and Ramey are no longer facing accountability but did not receive a reply in time for publication.

According to the letters drafted by lawmakers, the two officers now intend to retire from the Navy.

Related: Navy SEAL Commander Who Oversaw Training During Mullen Death Faults Drugs, Not Leadership

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