The demise of a Navy SEAL candidate through the grueling choice course of generally known as "Hell Week" — the place drop out charges are as excessive as 90% — has uncovered a tradition of dishonest and performance-enhancing drug use by many trainees.
Earlier this 12 months, Kyle Mullen had simply made it by means of the notorious week — however when he talked to his mom Regina Mullen on the telephone, she knew one thing was terribly fallacious.
"He may barely breathe and I used to be yelling at him," she instructed CBS Information.
"I requested him, 'Are you in a hospital?'" she recalled.
"No Ma, don't be concerned," she remembered him saying. "I like you."
Then, she texted him: "I must know your situation. You didn't sound good."
He died hours later, she mentioned.
His explanation for demise was pneumonia, which his mom attributed to the time he spent submerged within the chilly water off the coast of Southern California. However a search of a automobile he shared with different trainees discovered performance-enhancing medication, which he had instructed her about.
"He mentioned it will assist him, assist them, get well quicker and get them by means of Hell Week," she mentioned. "It was the one method potential to get by means of."
Forty members of Mullen's 210-person class of would-be SEALs admitted to taking banned substances — a warped testomony to coaching that pushes younger males to their absolute limits. Mullen's story and this system's struggles with drug use had been first reported Tuesday by The New York Occasions.
Mullen's mom instructed CBS Information that on the primary day of his coaching, he was not given water all day.
"On the finish of the day, he acquired heatstroke of 104.3 was his core temperature," she mentioned.
Trainees can give up at any time they need — however Mullen refused.
"I am not going to die," he wrote to himself. "If I do, I would reasonably die right here."
Mullen's mom likened what he skilled to a "sick hazing."
"It is not coaching," she mentioned, including, "I consider you want SEALs, however not this sort of torture."