US Navy News

[James1978]

Latest Navy Suicide Investigation Finds Shortfalls But Fails to Address Gun Access

22 May 2023
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin

The Navy's investigation into a cluster of four suicides in the span of a month at one East Coast maintenance center found the command was not well suited to managing the sailors, who were all evaluated for medical issues.

The latest investigation, which was released alongside a report on USS George Washington carrier suicides, noted that all of the deaths at the maintenance center were among first tour sailors who were at various stages of the disability evaluation process and "suffering from a confluence of external stressors."

All four also had unrestricted access to personally owned guns -- an issue that goes largely unaddressed in the report.

The report investigated four sailors who killed themselves between Oct. 29 and Nov. 26, 2022. Three reported some form of anxiety or stress related to their Navy service, but some also had serious medical issues. One sailor was being evaluated for seizures; another obesity; and one had "debilitating back pain."

The command the four sailors were assigned to is the Navy's Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, or MARMC, a massive unit that manages the maintenance needs of the many ships in the Norfolk, Virginia, area. The command has around 3,000 people, and half are active-duty sailors.

About one-third of those sailors at any time are assigned to the unit because they are undergoing some sort of medical issue or event.

For example, on Jan. 23, the report says 200 sailors were being evaluated for a disability, 213 had recently given birth, and a handful were either waiting for new orders or to be separated from the Navy.

The command struggled to offer even basic suicide prevention. The MARMC's policies didn't have any guidance on dealing with sailors who demonstrated suicidal behaviors or what should be done in the aftermath of a suicide.

Investigators found that the unit hadn't conducted an annual suicide prevention drill in three years.

The report did note, though, that "the Navy, writ large, has failed to fully implement the Suicide Prevention program" as defined by its own rules.

Some commands, including a similar maintenance center in Mayport, Florida, did use the cluster as a chance to come up with new and different ways to talk about and try to prevent suicide.

Ultimately, investigators made recommendations for 25 reforms that the Navy leaders who received the report accepted in their letters endorsing the findings. Missing among the actions was any mention of addressing the method that these four sailors used to end their lives: guns.

Investigators found all of the sailors had ready access to firearms, and some resisted suggestions of keeping them under lock.

The Navy report found that "access to personally owned firearms, and unwillingness to

surrender access to lethal means, to include the use of gun locks, was a causal factor in the deaths of all four Sailors."

An independent panel commissioned by the Pentagon recently recommended that military exchanges stop selling guns to service members under 25 years old and put in place waiting periods for gun and ammunition purchases as a way to bring down the military's high suicide rates.

The panel's findings showed guns were involved in 66% of active-duty suicides, as well as 78% of National Guard suicides and 72% of reserve suicides.

Military.com's own investigation into the issue revealed that, while guns are not allowed in the barracks, leaders have few ways to police that policy since they aren't being told by the stores when one of their service members buys a gun.

Adm. Daryl Caudle said in a call with reporters last week that the Navy is looking into when sailors are issued a gun by their ship as part of watch-standing duties. The call was part of the release of the report and another that looked into the suicides aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington.

"Far too many, on a percentage basis, of the tragic deaths due to suicide are due to a firearm and far too many of that population is with a service-provided weapon," Caudle added.

The report into the suicides at MARMC noted that the command handed out about 100 locks after the second suicide, and more than 300 since it received them in November 2022.

The report recommends that, if the Navy plans to continue assigning potentially disabled sailors to these centers, more manpower with the appropriate background and skill sets would be needed.

Investigators ultimately concluded that the four suicides "were neither related, nor connected," but the report found communication between the doctors who were regularly seeing the sailors and leadership at the command was fractured.

That led to blind spots in keeping tabs on the sailors at the MARMC and became a contributing factor in their deaths, the Navy found.

Investigators said that, due to the industrial environment and fast-paced work tempo, maintenance centers like the one in Norfolk are "not well-suited" to provide effective management, administration and oversight of the sailors.

One issue was an overwhelmed system of oversight that began with the command's deployability coordinator -- a sailor charged with the accurate "accounting, tracking, medical treatment, and expeditious movement" of sailors on medical restrictions from duty through the screening process.

The sailor "was overwhelmed … given the significant number of [limited duty] Sailors under his cognizance [and] the amount of work involved," the report said.

Investigators also determined that the training available for that position was inadequate: Ideally, the sailor in the position should have a medical background and receive "focused training beyond a PowerPoint presentation."

[James1978]

First Flight III Destroyer Jack H. Lucas Completes Acceptance Trials, Delivery Imminent
By: Sam LaGrone
May 19, 2023

The first Flight III Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer completed its final acceptance trails ahead of delivery and commissioning into the service later this year, Naval Sea Systems Command said on Friday.

Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125) returned to Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., on Thursday after several days of trials in the Gulf of Mexico. Now cleared to enter service, the destroyer is expected to deliver in the next several days, two defense officials told USNI News.

“During acceptance trials, the ship and its crew performed a series of demonstrations for review by the U.S. Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey,” reads the statement from NAVSEA.
“INSURV uses these demonstrations to validate Navy specifications and requirements prior to delivery of the ship to the U.S. Navy.”

Since December, Jack Lucas has been undergoing a series of builder’s trials and tests of its new radar system. The destroyer is the first Navy ship to field Raytheon’s new electronically scanned array AN/SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar and has undergone hull changes to accommodate the new radar and an updated version of the Aegis Combat System.

“Our extended network of Navy, Ingalls and supplier partners got this done through open communication, hard work and tenacity,” Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement.

The 10,000-ton destroyer will replace the aging Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers as the air defense platform in the carrier strike group. An O-6 will command the Flight IIIs, rather than an O-5 like the legacy Arleigh Burkes.

Ingalls laid the keel for Lucas on Oct. 7, 2019 and launched the destroyer on June 4, 2021. The ship was the last destroyer in a 2013 multi-ship buy.

The last Flight IIA built at Ingalls, USS Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123), was commissioned on May 13.

The Gulf Coast yard is also building Flight III destroyers Ted Stevens (DDG-128), Jeremiah Denton (DDG-129) and George M. Neal (DDG-131).

On Tuesday, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works laid the keel for its first Flight III ship, Louis H. Wilson, Jr. (DDG-126).

[James1978]

USS George Washington Leaves Newport News After Almost 6-Year-Long Refueling Overhaul
By: Sam LaGrone
May 22, 2023

USS George Washington (CVN-73) has left HIII’s Newport News Shipbuilding for sea trials after almost six years at the shipyard undergoing a mid-life refueling and overhaul, USNI News has learned.

The carrier departed the shipyard and sailed down the James River for the Atlantic Ocean at about noon Monday, a Navy official confirmed to USNI News. The sea trials, expected to last several days, follow the 2,117-day maintenance period that refueled the carrier’s two nuclear reactors, modernized systems and refurbished the ship’s interior. The Navy typically plans for the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) to take four years.

From 2008 to 2015, George Washington was the Navy’s forward-deployed aircraft carrier in Japan. The different maintenance schedule, the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on HII’s workforce and delays in funding the mid-life maintenance period contributed to the extended repair period.

“Factors that extended the RCOH included delays and changes in her RCOH planning and induction timeline due to FY15 budgetary decisions to inactivate (vice refuel) this ship; the arrival condition of the ship, which was more challenging than expected, planned or budgeted for, including growth work in significant areas of the RCOH; the requirement to remove critical parts from CVN-73 to support higher-priority, deploying aircraft carriers; and the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce and industrial base,” reads an HII statement to USNI News.

The carrier’s sailaway comes days after the Navy released an extensive report that outlined quality of life problems for the crew assigned to the carrier while it was in the shipyard. From 2017 through April of 2022, nine sailors assigned to the carrier died by suicide, prompting the quality of life investigation.

The next carrier slated for its mid-life overhaul, USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), has been at Newport News shipbuilding since May 2021.

Following its delivery back to the Navy, Washington will return to Japan and relieve carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), which will return to the U.S.

[James1978]

Joint Task Force – Red Hill Aims To Begin Defueling as Early as October, Per New Plan
By: Heather Mongilio
May 23, 2023

Joint Task Force – Red Hill will hold two open houses this week for the Hawaii service member community and residents as it works to gain back trust ahead of its planned defueling of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, now slated to begin in October.

The Department of Defense recently released a second supplement to its original plan to defuel Red Hill following a November 2021 leak in which fuel contaminated the drinking water. The supplement moves the expected defueling timeline up, with defueling beginning as early as October, if the plan is accepted by the Hawaii Department of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense, according to a joint task force press release.

Under the accelerated timeline, defueling of the tank mains, the flowable tank bottoms, surge tanks and pipelines will start in October and conclude in January 2024, according to the second supplement to the Department of Defense’s original June 30 plan laying out how it would defuel Red Hill. The plan was denied by the Hawaii Department of Health due to lack of specificity, resulting in the joint task force producing multiple supplements.

The timeline for defueling has continued to accelerate, and while supplements did not previously include a starting time, defueling was slated to end by July 2024. The new timeline pushes the end date up by six months.

The ability to accelerate the timeline comes from the DOD, along with the regulators, the Hawaii Department of Health and the EPA, finding efficiencies in the repair and defueling processes, Joint Task Force – Red Hill said in a statement.

““This supplement to the defueling plan presents a detailed roadmap and timeline for work we must accomplish, and identifies the conditions that need to be met to begin the safe and expeditious removal of fuel from the facility ahead of our original plan,” Vice Adm. John Wade, commander of Joint Task Force – Red Hill said in a statement.

The Hawaii Department of Health is currently reviewing the plan, according to a news release from the state agency.

“We are encouraged by the updated Red Hill defueling timeline,” Deputy Director of Environmental Health Kathleen Ho said in the release. “Moving up the timeline is a testament to the continued work by DOH and the community to push the Joint Task Force to move quickly and safely to defuel Red Hill. We will carefully review this submission to ensure that the updated timeline and plan can be executed safely without any further risk to the environment.”

Between 100,000 to 400,000 gallons of fuel could remain in the tanks after the defueling, according to the supplement. The DoD is expected to submit additional supplements for dealing with the leftover fuel.

The plan does not specifically address where the fuel will go once it is removed. According to the supplement, it will be moved to “approved defense fuel support points.”

The supplement includes a number of worst-case scenarios in terms of leaks during defueling with the steps the joint task force would take in the situation.

As an example, one of the most likely releases could happen in the tank gallery during defueling, which would happen from a pipe rupture, a failed repair or a valve failure. If a leak were to happen, the joint task force would use Aqueous Film Forming Foam retention pumps to recover up to 20,000 gallons of the leaked fuel within seven minutes, according to the supplement.

Joint Task Force – Red Hill is currently in the third phase of the defueling plan, during which it is making necessary repairs before defueling can commence. As of May 15, 220 out of 253 repairs have been completed, with 120 repairs submitted for third-party validation and to the Hawaii Department of Health, according to the task force’s dashboard. Repairs are slated to conclude May 31.

In addition to the two open houses on May 23 and 24, the Joint Task Force will hold a National Environmental Policy Act public meeting on June 15. The Department of Health will also hold an open house on June 5.

[James1978]

GD Electric Boat Awarded $1B For Virginia Sub Long-lead Material After 1 Year Delay
By: Sam LaGrone
May 23, 2023

General Dynamics Electric Boat was awarded an advanced procurement contract for two new Virginia-class attack submarines after a year-long insurance dispute with the Navy.

The $1.07 billion award will pay for long-lead items for the Block V attack boats SSN-812 and SSN-813 and will allow EB and partner HII’s Newport News to assemble the components for the submarines ahead of the start of construction.

“This contract modification sends a crucial demand signal to the submarine industrial base, enabling our suppliers to invest in the capacity and materials needed to increase production volume,” EB president Kevin Graney said in a statement.

Awarding the contract comes after a year of negotiation between the Navy and General Dynamics over the liability in the event of an explosion of a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile aboard the submarine.

Until 2018, the Navy had assumed the liability from General Dynamics in the event of a Tomahawk accident aboard a submarine under construction, an unusually high-risk provision due to its higher energy propellant.

The impasse between the Navy and General Dynamics delayed the acquisition of parts for the two submarines by almost a year, USNI News has previously reported.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro led the Navy’s drive to secure better terms for the service.

“The American taxpayers have the right that when a company does something that is willful and wrong … and it results in a catastrophic event, that they not be the ones to be held accountable, that industry be held accountable for that. That’s my responsibility to the American taxpayer, as a U.S. government official,” Del Toro told reporters during a press roundtable at the Surface Navy Association symposium.

The advanced procurement award is the clearest sign the indemnification issue has been settled.

While the two boats are now moving ahead, industry leaders have said the lack of a predictable schedule has hurt the supplier base.

“The suppliers clearly could have and would have started, a year or more ago if the funding had been there,” Newport News Shipbuilding president Jennifer Boykin told USNI News earlier this month without directly addressing the insurance issue.
“The worst thing we can do as an enterprise is starve the beginning. That’s part of what we’re really working with the Navy on to get advanced funding to those suppliers who are already struggling with workforce.”

The two Block V boats will feature the Virginia Payload Module, an additional section in the middle of the hull that will allow the submarines to field more Tomahawks and eventually the Common Hypersonic Missile (CPS). The Navy settled a separate insurance issue with Lockheed Martin over the risk posed to Virginia-class boats from the hypersonic weapons.

“By delivering this funding, the Navy is sending a strong signal to the industrial base to increase capacity while also ensuring we make good on the AUKUS security agreement and sustain our required force structure,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) in a statement.

One of the two attack boats, both fitted with the Virginia Payload Module, will be heavily modified for special operations missions and seabed warfare, according to the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget documents.

The estimated $5.2 billion boat will likely succeed the modified Seawolf-class submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), according to the Congressional Research Service.

[James1978]

Franchetti viewed as likely choice to lead Navy, would be first woman on Joint Chiefs
A career surface warfare officer, Franchetti is currently Vice Chief of Naval Operations and previously commanded the Naples, Italy-based US 6th Fleet.

By Justin Katz
May 26, 2023

WASHINGTON — Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti is widely seen as the most likely candidate to lead the Navy as the next chief of naval operations, an appointment that would make her both the first woman to lead the Navy and the first woman to serve as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

There is always a chance things could change up until the White House makes the public announcement, but in recent weeks Navy observers and defense analysts talking with Breaking Defense have broadly coalesced around the notion Franchetti will receive the green light.

If selected and confirmed, she will follow Adm. Michael Gilday, the former 10th Fleet Commander whose own nomination to become the Navy’s senior admiral four years ago was relatively abrupt and unexpected, preceded by a scandal that forced the White House’s first pick to withdraw from the process.

Franchetti, a native of Rochester, NY, is a career surface warfare officer and just one of just a handful of female four-star officers in the US military. She’s previously served as the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Staff and commanded US 6th Fleet.

Having taken the helm as VCNO in September 2022, Franchetti is only the second woman to hold the office, behind now retired Adm. Michelle Howard. She has been much less visible publicly than her boss, Gilday, mostly seen during congressional hearings, as well as a keynote speech during the annual Sea Air Space exposition earlier this year and a March interview on CBS News featuring the Pentagon’s most senior female officers.

During the CBS News interview, Franchetti recalled how during her first deployment, the commanding officer of her ship bluntly told her he didn’t want women aboard and was intent on seeing her fail.

That clearly didn’t happen, as Franchetti rose through the ranks and between 2018 and 2020, commanded US 6th Fleet, based in Naples, Italy.

As chief, she was responsible for forces in and around the Black Sea, and notably, in proximity to the Russian navy. During a 2019 interview with Defense News, she described her own experiences interacting with the Russians at the time as largely “professional,” save for one “aircraft interaction” that she deemed “unprofessional.”

“We operate in international waters,” she said at the time. “The Russians are operating in international waters. My expectation of my forces and the Russian forces is that they are going to be safe and professional. All the navies have a right and responsibility to act professionally at sea.”

The experience operating in the Mediterranean and near the Russian fleet will be more relevant now than ever as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. Just this week, a variety of reports made their way through Twitter asserting the Ukrainians had used unmanned naval vessels to attack the Russian navy’s fleet.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of US Pacific Fleet and a graduate of the service’s famous TOPGUN school, has been widely viewed as the other top contender to become CNO.

One question to watch is how Franchetti builds relationships with industry, as Gilday had several public clashes with the defense sector. The admiral has admonished defense lobbyists for seeking planes the Navy “doesn’t need” and publicly called out certain shipbuilders for failing to bring the service’s vessels out of maintenance quickly enough.

Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard, became the first woman to lead a branch of the military in June 2022. However, the Coast Guard is not part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and operates under the Department of Homeland Security.

The CNO spot is just one of a series of changes coming for the Joint Chiefs. The White House on Thursday officially nominated Air Force Gen. CQ Brown to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, beating out the other top contender, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger; Berger himself will be retiring soon, leaving another new face on the Joint Chiefs meetings. And in late April, Biden tapped Army vice chief of staff Gen. Randy George to take over as leader of that service.

[James1978]

Navy SEALs training plagued by pervasive problems, according to investigation after death of sailor

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
May 25, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The training program for Navy SEALs is plagued by widespread failures in medical care, poor oversight and the use of performance-enhancing drugs that have increased the risk of injury and death to those seeking to become elite commandos, according to an investigation triggered by the death of a sailor last year.

Medical oversight and care were “poorly organized, poorly integrated and poorly led and put candidates at significant risk,” the nearly 200-page report compiled by the Naval Education and Training Command concluded.

The highly critical report said flaws in the medical program “likely had the most direct impact on the health and well being” of the SEAL candidates and “specifically” on Kyle Mullen, the sailor who died. It said if the shortcomings had been addressed, his death may have been preventable.

The investigation also dug deep into the longstanding problem of sailors using steroids and similar banned drugs as they try to pass the SEAL qualification course. The report recommends far more robust testing for the drugs — a move the Navy and the military more broadly have been slow to make — and better education for service members in order to prevent their use.

Mullen collapsed and died of acute pneumonia just hours after completing the grueling Hell Week test last year. A report released in October by Naval Special Warfare Command concluded that Mullen, 24, from Manalapan, New Jersey, died “in the line of duty, not due to his own misconduct.”

It said there was no evidence of performance-enhancing drugs, but that he had an enlarged heart that contributed to his death. The report said, however, that he was not tested for some steroids because needed blood and urine samples were not available, and that multiple vials of drugs and syringes were later found in his car.

His death shined a light on the brutal test that pushes SEAL candidates to their limits. During the five-and-a-half day test, which involves basic underwater demolition and survival and other combat tactics, sailors are allowed to sleep just twice, for two-hour periods only. It tests physical, mental and psychological strength along with leadership skills, and is so grueling that at least 50% to 60% don’t finish it.

Navy leaders conducted multiple reviews and investigations in the wake of his death, and this latest report makes a lengthy series of recommendations for changes to medical care staffing and training and to drug testing.

Rear Adm. Keith Davids, who heads Naval Special Warfare Command, said the Navy will learn from the tragedy and was already taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

“Our effectiveness as the Navy’s maritime special operations force necessitates demanding, high-risk training,” Davids said in a statement. “While rigorous and intensely demanding, our training must be conducted with an unwavering commitment to safety and methodical precision.”

He said the command will “honor Seaman Mullen’s memory by ensuring that the legacy of our fallen teammate guides us towards the best training program possible for our future Navy SEALs.”

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said in a statement that the probe “exposed a culture that needs radical change, and the Navy has given every indication that they will implement serious changes to address the egregiously flawed command structure and failure after failure that led to Kyle’s death.”

Smith was briefed on the investigation Thursday along with Mullen’s mother, Regina, a registered nurse who has vowed to work to force changes to ensure this doesn’t happen to another family.

“Looking at the egregious failures that went on, there needs to be serious accountability,” she said. “The next stage of accountability is where I am focused.”

Already the command has taken steps to overhaul procedures, add medical staff and improve their training, particularly on heart and breathing problems commonly seen during Hell Week. Commanders are also doing more drug testing and heart screenings.

The latest report notes that special operations forces are routinely required to carry out high-risk military operations, and thus require demanding training. But it said SEAL instructors in recent years appeared to focus on weeding out candidates, rather than teaching or mentoring. Compounding that problem, the report said, is that candidates were often reluctant to seek medical care because it would be seen as weak and could get them removed from the course or delay their completion. According to the Navy, about 888 SEAL candidates are considered every year, and the goal is to graduate 175.

The “ability to continue training through discomfort and some degraded physical condition was seen as a positive trait by instructors and this was understood by candidates,” the report said.

As a result, candidates would push on and not tell medical staff or leaders about injuries, and there was pressure to use drugs to help keep them going.

The use of performance-enhancing drugs has been a persistent problem. Investigations in 2011, 2013 and 2018 into suspected steroid use by SEAL candidates led to discipline and requests for enhanced testing.

The use of hair follicle testing was denied at least twice by Navy leaders over that time. Random testing for steroids wasn’t authorized by the Defense Department. The Navy has asked the department to do a study on testing and to allow random tests and sweeps for drugs, but those requests have not been approved by the Pentagon. In the wake of Mullen’s death, however, the command began some additional testing.

The new report, however, suggests there may have been conflicting messages to candidates. In one case, it noted that during a discussion about the policy with Mullen’s class, an instructor, who was not identified, told sailors that all types of people make it through the course, including “steroid monkeys and skinny strong guys. Don’t use PEDS, it’s cheating, and you don’t need them. And whatever you do, don’t get caught with them in your barracks room.”

The report said that after an “awkward silence” the instructor added, “that was a joke.” It said some candidates interpreted it as an implicit endorsement of using the drugs. Barracks are subject to routine inspections, which the report said were done about once a week during Mullen’s class, and it noted several instances where the drugs were found or sailors admitted to their use.

According to the report, Mullen told his mother that he was thinking about buying some of the performance-enhancing drugs, “because he did not want to be at a disadvantage since many other candidates were taking PEDS.” It said his mother encouraged him not to. The report details that in addition to drugs in his car, his phone also had text messages discussing their use and attempts to buy them.

The report concluded that Mullen’s death was not “unforeseeable,” noting that candidates had sought medical treatment for pneumonia 11 times in 2021 and early 2022, and there were 112 visits for other similar issues.

Three Navy officers received administrative “non-punitive” letters as a result of Mullen’s death. Navy Capt. Brian Drechsler, who was commander of the Naval Special Warfare Center, received a letter and was pulled out of the job this month. Capt. Brad Geary, commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare’s Basic Training Command, and an unnamed senior medical officer also got letters. The report never names the medical officer, but notes a number of concerns with his command.

[James1978]

Navy SEAL Instructors 'Hunted' Weaker Candidates Amid Poor Medical Care, Drug Use

26 May 2023
Military.com | By Konstantin Toropin

The Navy SEAL training course is rife with overzealous and unchecked instructors, spotty medical care and students who were so determined to pass that they would either lie to doctors or turn to doping, according to a newly released and highly critical Navy report.

The report, commissioned in the wake of the death of Seaman Kyle Mullen, an aspiring SEAL who died in 2022 just after completing the course's notorious "Hell Week," details a "near perfect storm" of issues that included a "degree of complacency and insufficient attentiveness to a wide range of important inputs meant to keep the students safe."

The Navy ordered the investigation into how the training course, known as the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course, or BUD/s, came in the wake of comments by Mullen's mother and New York Times reporting that exposed some of the problems detailed in the report.

A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command told Military.com that the investigation is being reviewed, "however, it is too early to comment on any potential accountability actions at this time."

The report itself points to the need for some Navy accountability for the problems in SEAL training, and it notes that Naval Special Warfare Command intended to take action, though that section of the document is redacted.

A statement from the Navy released alongside the report said that "Naval Special Warfare Command has already implemented many improvements to its training programs and policies," and specifically cited greater instructor oversight and training as well as more thorough medical screenings for cardiac conditions.

In 2021, before Mullen and his fellow recruits of Class 352 began their training, leaders at Naval Special Warfare Command and the schoolhouse running BUD/s were already dealing with one problem on their hands. Candidates were dropping out at a far greater rate than normal.

While normally, about one in three candidates would drop during the first -- and toughest -- part of the training pipeline, between 2021 and 2022 that figure spiked to almost one in two.

Rear Adm. Hugh Howard, at the time the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, told the leaders and instructors at the Basic Training Command, or BTC, the unit that runs BUD/s, that it was important to not relax standards to solve this issue.

"Zero is an okay number on the berm -- hold the standard," Howard is quoted as saying in the report.

However, investigators noted that some "may have misunderstood his intent." What followed instead was a change among the instructors to a mindset "focused on 'weeding out' candidates and 'hunting the back of the pack.'"

The report found that many of the instructors, who had no formal training for the role, "felt the quality of SEAL candidates making it through the pipeline had declined" and it was their job to uphold what they viewed as the standard.

Capt. Brad Geary, the officer in charge of BTC at the time, thought the increased drop rate had a few causes but he largely chalked it up to the fact that "the current generation had less mental toughness," the report said.

Meanwhile, the cadre of civilian instructors at the school, veteran SEALs put in place to be a check on the active-duty instructors, were sidelined after Geary made a deliberate decision to reduce their role in the training.

As a result, the investigation found that leaders at BTC ignored the civilian instructors' warnings about an incredibly tough curriculum and a "lack of perspective on the intent of the evolutions."

Compounding the problem was a medical team that was led by an officer -- unnamed in the report -- who, according to the report, "was inexperienced and ill-suited for leadership and yet was left responsible for ensuring the health of candidates at all BUD/s evolutions." Instead, two "overtasked" 1st class petty officers were overseeing medical care for all the SEAL candidates.

The lack of leadership and oversight in the medical department meant that no one at BTC or the overseeing Naval Special Warfare Center clinic had a full view of what treatment, problems or concerns any one candidate was facing, putting candidates at significant risk.

At the same time, recruits like Mullen were being overseen by wholly unqualified personnel.

Both this report as well as the Navy's investigation into Mullen's death noted that after the sailor finished Hell Week, he was given a cursory medical check and handed a flier that explicitly said "DO NOT go and see other/outside medical providers" before explaining, in all capital letters, that "if you go and see other medical personnel who do not understand Hell Week, they may admit you to the hospital or give you medicines that are not compatible with training."

As his condition worsened, the only people around him were other recruits who the Navy's investigators noted weren't even trained in CPR. Concerned by Mullen gasping for air as though he was "being drowned," sailors around him called the duty medical provider, who left them with the impression they should not go to the hospital, the report said.

According to the report, the very fact that sailors like Mullen would be hesitant to seek out medical help and downplay or hide issues in an effort to not be seen as weak was a challenge to the Navy's Special Warfare commands medical departments that "they were unprepared to meet."

That zeal to pass also meant that some recruits started turning to performance-enhancing drugs. The investigation revealed that the Navy has actually grappled with doping in the SEAL training pipeline at least twice in the past decade.

After both instances, one in 2011 and another in 2018, the Naval Special Warfare Command asked for permission to be able to test recruits for performance-enhancing substances more freely but was denied both times.

After Mullen's death, the investigators found a stash of performance-enhancing drugs in his car, including testosterone and human growth hormone. His blood and urine were unable to be tested for the drugs, the report noted.

Two candidates in Mullen's class ended up testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs ,and 20 other candidates are in limbo while the Navy gathers more evidence, according to the investigation.

For the time being, leaders at Naval Special Warfare Command are relying on tests that can suggest but not definitively prove use of performance-enhancing substances. But the report notes that "without a rigorous testing program producing timely results," the Navy "will be unable to effectively deter use."

In the wake of Mullen's death, the Navy has offered some accountability for the failures and oversights that have been exposed.

In October, the Navy issued administrative "non-punitive" letters to Geary and an unnamed senior medical officer. Geary's boss, Capt. Brian Drechsler, the commodore of the Naval Special Warfare Center, also received a letter.

While the letters themselves carry no punishment, they typically render an officer unpromotable.

Drechsler would go on to leave his post early in May. A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare command said at the time that the change was made in part "to better focus on addressing some of the lingering issues identified" by this very report.

Geary would be replaced by Capt. Timothy Sulick in June 2022, according to the report. The Navy does not appear to have publicly announced this turnover or said whether it occurred ahead of schedule.

According to the report, Sulick "emphasizes with instructors that their role is to raise the candidates up to the standards, not drive them to quit."

[James1978]

Investigation: Medical Safety Net Failed SEAL Candidate Kyle Mullen; Navy Weighing Potential Punishments
By: Heather Mongilio and Sam LaGrone
May 26, 2023

Navy lawyers are reviewing an investigation to determine potential punishments for sailors who may bear responsibility for the death of a SEAL candidate in 2022, USNI News has learned.

In his endorsement of the command investigation into the death of 24-year-old Seaman Kyle Mullen, Naval Education Command commander Rear Adm. Peter Garvin recommended that sailors spread around 10 different functions involved in the training and treatment of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training candidates could face accountability actions. A Navy spokesperson would not give specific numbers of sailors that are at risk for punishment. The decision would be left up to commanders based on recommendations from Navy lawyers, USNI News understands.

The March 24 endorsement tops a November investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mullen’s Feb. 4, 2022 death that identified several gaps within the medical oversight of SEAL training, especially around the “Hell Week” graduation exercise. A lack of written policy and guidance, including on medical issues associated with Hell Week and training, as well as insufficient communication led medical providers to miss the deteriorating conditions of Mullen and other unnamed SEAL candidates.

“This investigation identifies risks that aggregated as the result of inadequate oversight, insufficient risk assessment, poor medical command and control, and undetected performance-enhancing drug use; and also offers actionable solutions to mitigate those risks going forward,” Garvin wrote in his endorsement of the investigation performed by Rear Adm. Benjamin Reynolds, the director of operations and plans (N3) for the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

An October investigation into Mullen’s line of duty death found the sailor died of bacterial pneumonia with a contributing factor to be cardiomegaly – an enlarged heart. The timeline surrounding Mullen’s death, included in the May 25 investigation as well as the October investigation, found that Mullen struggled with respiratory issues throughout Hell Week before ultimately succumbing to pneumonia after he completed the phase.

A lack of communication between medical providers resulted in Mullen’s deteriorating condition going unmonitored. Another SEAL candidate also struggled with respiratory challenges and was taken to the hospital with Mullen. The unnamed candidate was ultimately intubated and also diagnosed with pneumonia.

Mullen sought medical assistance at the urging of his classmates on Feb. 3, 2022, after his worsening condition, including a hacking cough and a dark-colored fluid pouring out his nose and mouth when he sat up, worried them.

While on the way to medical, the candidates were stopped by an unnamed person who told them it was not time to go to medical as the candidates were going to be woken up and there would be a sick call.

The investigation does not say what happened during the sick call that morning.

Mullen was treated on Friday, Feb. 4, 2022 with high-flow oxygen due to a low oxygen saturation level. His vital statistics returned to normal after being treated with oxygen and he appeared normal, talking about playing football at Yale and singer Taylor Swift.

He then returned to training before needing to go back to the ambulance for a second time due to respiratory distress.

The medical providers in the ambulance treated Mullen as if he were suffering from Swimming Induced Pulmonary Edema, a medical condition that can be associated with cold water exposure and causes people to have breathing difficulties and spew frothy, pink sputum. SIPE is a common occurrence among SEAL candidates and Reynolds’ investigation found that medical providers may have normalized it, preventing them from seeing signs and symptoms of other conditions like pneumonia.

The medical provider who treated Mullen with oxygen in the ambulance did not alert other medical professionals about the course of treatment. Mullen’s treatment in the field was not noted in the BTC medical log. The next time a medical provider checked Mullen, they noted hearing diffused crackles in his lungs.

Without knowing Mullen had needed oxygen, the medical professional did not recognize that there might have been a more serious concern and did not order additional diagnostic testing.

“In the absence of reported symptoms, a field report of respiratory issues, or abnormal vital signs, the diffuse crackles in the lungs were not enough by themselves for [redacted] to trigger SIPE protocol or pursue any further diagnostic workup,” according to the May investigation.

Mullen repeatedly declined to go to the hospital or seek medical care despite his worsening condition, out of fear that he would get dropped from SEAL training.

“He had told friends and family that would ‘not ring the bell no matter what,’ and would die before he quit,” according to the May investigation.

The May investigation noted that candidates shared concerns about seeming weak or dropping from the training, which led to a reluctance to seek medical treatment. In some cases, this led Navy providers to recommend against going to the hospital for treatment, as the medical professionals would not understand the conditions the candidates experienced as part of BUD/S. Each candidate received a hard copy of a medical brief urging them to go to the Navy Special Warfare Center duty medical officer over civilian medical personnel.

“The hard copy of the NSWCEN medical debrief provides the phone number for the Duty Medical Officer and stated: ‘Do Not go and see other medical providers. We will see you at any time (If it is a true emergency call 911). … IF YOU GO AND SEE OTHER MEDICAL PERSONNEL WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND HELL WEEK, THEY MAY ADMIT YOU TO THE HOSPITAL OR GIVE YOU MEDICINES THAT ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH TRAINING,’” according to the investigation.

At Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL at the time of Mullen’s death, both Navy Special Warfare Command and Navy Special Warfare Command Basic Training Command had medical units overseeing sailors undergoing SEAL training that operated independently of each other but adjacently, which led to disjointed continuity of care and policies not being followed.

During Mullen’s class, the BTC Medical and the Navy Special Warfare Center Medical were not meeting or doing cross-training.

“At a minimum, the [Navy policy] requires that when a patient is handed over for subsequent care or treatment, the care providers must be coordinated to ensure optimal continuity of care, including a process to receive or share relevant patient information related to the reason for referral, the patient;’s physical and psychosocial status, a summary of care, treatment, and services provided and progress toward goals, and a list of current medication,” according to the May inspection.

The Navy Special Warfare Center did not have a signed directive to govern its medical center or the BTC medical center. It instead operated using an unsigned standard operating procedure, which did not address medical practice or protocols for caring for SEAL candidates in the field or during evolutions, according to the inspection.

Emergency Action Plans were to be reviewed by the Navy Special Warfare Center Senior Medical Officer, but instead the Basic Training Command instruction gave reviewing authority to the BTC Medical department head.

“The EAP in place at the time of class 352 [Mullen’s class] was not signed by the NWSCEN SMO but was instead signed by [redacted], an independent corpsman in the BTC Medical Department,” according to the May investigation.

The breakdown between the units meant that BTC medical corpsmen sometimes could not reach medical providers at Navy Special Warfare Center. Medical providers with Navy Special Warfare Center did not have the BTC medical log to review before conducting their medical checks, which also affected the continuity of care.

As a fix to some of the issues raised in the May inspection, the Navy Special Warfare Center Medical Department and the BTC Medical Department were merged for a 180-day trial, according to the inspection.

Three other members of Mullen’s class were sent to the hospital with symptoms of pneumonia. One was diagnosed with another bacterial strain of pneumonia with the other two discharged with “productive cough.” One of the three candidates had been monitored on the whiteboard for SIPE.

Medical staff checked Mullen multiple times after he finished Hell Week and conducted a final medical check at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, without diagnostic tools. The Navy Special Warfare Center then closed its medical clinic and assigned a duty provider to be on call by phone.

Around 2 p.m., Mullen’s condition deteriorated and a candidate went to the medical center to get help, but it was empty. The candidates then called the duty provider, who said that Mullen could go to the hospital if he was in a bad condition, but it would likely result in him being admitted. Another medical check would happen in the morning.

The candidates called the duty provider again when another candidate started to have difficulties breathing and wanted to seek hospital care. Mullen also needed care, with an unnamed person telling the candidates that the medical office was closed and to call 911.

By the time emergency services reached Mullen, he was unresponsive. Watchstanders had not performed CPR because they were not trained, according to the May investigation.

The investigation also noted issues with Basic Training Command Medical leadership, with corpsmen in the BTC Medical Department raising concerns about lack of leadership, medical competency and poor temper for an unnamed leader.

Capt. Bradley Geary, the commander of the Basic Training Command at the time of Mullen’s death, opted to mentor the leader instead of relieve him.

The investigation also highlighted concerns about the rate of attrition for Mullen’s class and the prior classes. Geary attributed the attrition rate to a lack of mental toughness by the current generation, according to the investigation.

Civilian employees had been hired as mentors to provide continuity, but tension arose between civilian employees and active-duty instructors. As a result, Geary told the civilians, who had raised concerns about the training’s increased risk, to allow the active-duty instructors to take on more of a leadership role.

Attrition rates during Geary’s tenure surpassed historical ones, raising red flags. In 2021 and 2022, attrition in the first three weeks of Phase 1, which comes before Hell Week, was 48 percent and 49 percent, respectively, compared to the historical average of 30 percent.

To adjust the attrition rates, Geary mandated that candidates must get six hours of sleep a night before Hell Week and ended additional training, which had been seen as extra work.

“Capt. Gear maintained a view that the high attrition was caused, among other reasons, by the current generation having less mental resilience, or being less ‘tough,’” according to the investigation. “As a result, while he removed ruck-runs and added mandatory sleep, he made the decision to take no additional action on the deficient controls on instructor cadre execution and heightened attrition continued through Class 353.”

Geary, along with Capt. Brian Drechsler, was responsible for overseeing the medical care of the candidates. Geary turned over the command to Capt. Timothy Sulick in June 2022.

[James1978]

Bollinger Launches Navajo-Class Salvage Ship for U.S. Navy

GCaptain
May 26, 2023

Bollinger Shipyards has launched the lead ship in the U.S. Navy’s new Navajo-Class Towing, Salvage and Rescue Ships (T-ATS).

The launch took place last week at Bollinger’s Houma Shipyard in Louisiana.

The Navajo-class will focus on long-range towing, rescue, and salvage missions for the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command, as well as humanitarian assistance, search and rescue, and oil spill response. They will be replacing T-ATF fleet ocean tugs and the T-ARS rescue and salvage ships within the U.S. Navy.

Bollinger has been contracted for five vessels in the class, including the Navajo (T-ATS 6), Cherokee Nation (T-ATS 7), and Saginaw Ojibwe Anishinabek (T-ATS 8), which are under construction. Bollinger is under contract for the Lenni Lenape (T-ATS 9) and Muscogee Creek Nation (T-ATS 10).

Bollinger acquired the T-ATS program in April 2021 from Gulf Island Shipyards in a deal that included Gulf Island’s Houma shipyard facilities.

Austal USA is building an additional four Navajo-class ships.

Earlier this year, Bollinger Houma Shipyard also celebrated the launch of a Regional Class Research Vessel (RCRV) for Oregon State University and the National Science Foundation.

[James1978]

US Navy Discloses 155mm Advanced Gun System’s Preliminary Fate
The U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has disclosed to Naval News the initial fate of the Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers’ Mark 51 155mm/62 (6.1”) Advanced Gun Systems (AGS) that will be removed for the installation of 12 Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic missile launch tubes.

Peter Ong
30 May 2023

Zumwalt-class destroyers' 155mm AGS will be placed into storage

Naval News has been pursuing this question for some time: Will the 155mm Advanced Gun Systems (AGS) be saved and stored, destroyed in the removal process, or scrapped?

Designed as long-range offshore fire support for a potential U.S. Marines’ amphibious landing, the stealthy Mark 51 155mm/62 (6.1”) AGSs were supposed to be the largest caliber of offshore naval gunfire support aboard a U.S. Navy warship. However, their ammunition magazines and automated loading were not designed to fit, handle, and fire U.S. Army and NATO-standard 155mm howitzer shells due to differences in the shape and size of the projectile and firing charges, thus requiring special custom GPS Long-Range Land Attack Projectiles (LRLAP) costing around $800,000+ each due to the reduction of Zumwalt-class destroyers from 32 to 3.

This exorbitant cost of each shell rendered the AGSs useless for years even though the guns could, in theory, fire at 83 nautical miles (150 kilometers) at 10 rounds-per-minute with LRLAP. A whopping 335 155mm rounds can be carried aboard each AGS, or 670 rounds for both 155mm AGSs. There is also an auxiliary storeroom separate from the automated ammunition handling system that can hold an additional 320 rounds and would require the manual transfer of the rounds to the guns’ magazines. Therefore, one Zumwalt-class destroyer has 990 rounds of 155mm AGS shells.

The AGS barrels are nestled in stealthy angular structures that hid the highly reflective metal barrel in a trench from enemy ship radars and sensors. Only when ready to fire would the gun barrels elevate outwards, rotate, and fire.

For years, NAVSEA debated on what to do with the non-fuctional 155mm AGSs. The public posted online comments such as design and acquire cheaper shells, remove them for more Mark 41 vertical launch system (VLS) cells, or even replace them with high-tech railguns. NAVSEA has finally answered on May 19, 2023 as to the 155mm AGSs’ initial fate.

In response to your question on the 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS), there is no update to provide at this time. They will be placed into storage and the disposition remains to be determined.”

NAVSEA Spokesperson, May 2023

Naval News and Author’s Comments

The disclosure to store the 155mm AGSs is revealing in that NAVSEA determined that the AGSs are worth saving to some degree and not cut up, destroyed outright, and scrapped in the dismantling process.

A total of six Mark 51 155mm/62 (6.1”) AGSs exist, two guns on each DDG-1000 destroyer. As to what state and degree of dismantling the 155mm AGSs will be when placed into storage remains unclear. Also unknown is if the 155mm AGSs can be used again for another class of ship, and to date, no future U.S. Navy ship design exists that intends to utilize the 155mm AGSs. The next-generation destroyer, the DDG(X), purportedly shows a 5-inch gun on the bow, even though that is a preliminary design graphic. One conceptual naval vessel does include the 155mm gun and that is the UXV Drone Carrier Warship which Naval News wrote an Op-Ed in April 2021.

Even if the UXV Drone Carrier Warship became a reality and was built in the future, it would make more logical sense if NAVSEA went ahead and used U.S. Army howitzer guns such as the 155mm Extended Range Cannon Artillery (M1299 ERCA) that fires the entire U.S. Army and NATO-standard 155mm shell inventory than resurrect the ammunition-less Advanced Gun Systems that requires custom shells to be made. While the M1299 ERCA cannot fire out to 150 kilometers like the AGSs, it can reach out to at least 70 kilometers with a rocket-assisted round and with the planned ERCA autoloader, can fire 10 rounds-per-minute. Nonetheless, this is all hypothetical thinking as there are no publicly disclosed current and future plans within NAVSEA to design and build a future hybrid Drone Carrier Warship.

Once removed, if the DDG-1000s’ six 155mm AGSs will ever be resurrected in the future seems murky as the AGSs never did have much of a purpose without shells to fire. If they ever do see a resurrection, they would need a total revamp of their automated ammunition handling facilities to accommodate and fire much cheaper and plentiful 155mm U.S. Army and NATO shells and do away with the U.S. Navy’s super-expensive LRLAP shells.

That can be a possibility if the U.S. Navy builds new automated ammunition handling magazines underneath these AGSs, preferably not on a warship. Perhaps all six removed AGSs can find new life on the perimeter of Guam, on an island, at a strategic choke point, or at an important port to act as defensive coastal artillery against an amphibious invasion. While World War Two-like fixed site coastal gun batteries are outdated in belief in today’s age of advanced Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) missiles, when combined with defensive land-based surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), AEGIS Ashore, AEGIS warships, and counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar missiles (C-RAM) to shoot down incoming enemy missiles, these land-based 155mm AGSs might have a fighting chance against enemy LRPF missiles to survive and fire back and act as an effective gunfire support as they were originally intended.

[James1978]

Navy Wants to Remove 3 Pipelines at Red Hill Fuel Facility

1 June 2023
Honolulu Star-Advertiser | By Kevin Knodell

The Navy announced Wednesday it wants to dismantle the pipelines connecting the massive fuel tanks at its underground Red Hill facility to Pearl Harbor.

The Navy submitted a supplement to the state Department of Health for the under-review Red Hill Tank Closure Plan that calls for the three pipelines to be removed as part of a three-year closure plan that will take place after the defueling of the tanks -- a process the military now says is set to conclude in January.

The Red Hill tanks store about 104 million gallons of fuel and sit just 100 feet above a critical aquifer that most of Oahu relies on for clean drinking water. For years, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and environmental groups warned that the tanks posed a serious threat to the island's water supply.

In November 2021, fuel from the facility contaminated the Navy's Oahu water supply, which serves 93,000 people -- including service members, military families and civilians living in former military housing areas such as the Kapilina beach homes. Amid mounting pressure and after months of resisting a state emergency order to drain the tanks, the Pentagon announced in March 2022 that it would permanently shutter the facility.

However, as part of the shutdown, the Navy has pursued a controversial campaign of soliciting ideas from the community for "beneficial reuse" of the tanks, though military officials have insisted they will never be reused for fuel. But some officials, like BWS General Manager Ernie Lau, have expressed vocal concern that any reuse plan could be a backdoor to putting fuel back in the tanks so long as the pipelines are in place.

Local officials and activists have cited language in the National Defense Authorization Act -- signed by President Joe Biden in December -- which seems to give military officials a ready escape from that commitment if the Defense Department wants to change course under either Biden or a future administration, as cause for concern.

The act states that the secretary of defense must first certify to congressional defense committees that defueling the facility won't adversely affect the military's ability to fuel its Indo-­Pacific operations before the Navy can begin draining the fuel sitting in massive underground tanks In a Wednesday news release, the Navy said "this key update demonstrates the (Navy's) commitment to never use the tanks for storage of fuel or other hazardous substance storage."

When reached for comment Wednesday night, Lau told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser "we still need to look at the entire supplement with all the enclosures more closely, but the Navy now deciding to remove all the three large fuel pipelines that run over 3 miles connecting the tanks to Pearl Harbor is very promising."

In its announcement of the new supplement, the Navy said removing the pipelines also would have "other benefits," such as eliminating long-term maintenance costs and "providing more flexibility for potential beneficial non-fuel reuse within the tunnel space."

But ironically, until defueling is complete, the pipelines are critical to that process. Joint Task Force Red Hill, the military organization under Vice Adm. John Wade tasked with defueling the tanks, has been working to repair the pipelines, which were found to be in a state of profound disrepair, to ensure the fuel can be safely moved from the tanks at Red Hill to fuel tanker ships in Pearl Harbor as part of the defueling process.

The Red Hill water crisis has strained relations between the local community, Hawaii officials and military leaders at a time when the Pentagon considers the Pacific to be its top priority theater of operations amid simmering tensions with China. Many local residents are rethinking their relationship with the military as a series of chemical and fuel spills around the islands have brought intense scrutiny on the military's environmental impact.

"The Navy recognizes that the planning and process of closure at Red Hill is iterative," said Meredith Berger, the assistant secretary of the Navy who oversees energy, installations and environment issues for the service. "This supplement continues to prioritize the Navy's commitment to the safety of the Oahu community and environmental health, and reinforces our assurance of transparency."

But Lau said that he still has several questions about the plan. While JTF Red Hill has worked around the clock and has managed to accelerate the timeline of defueling from an initial estimated completion date at the end of 2024 to early January, the task force said last month that there still would be an estimated 100,000 to 400,000 gallons of fuel remaining at the Red Hill facility after that process that the military will need to remove.

"How much of that fuel is going to be in the pipelines -- or if it's anyplace else?" asked Lau. "(If ) removing the pipelines would help to address (this), will that take all the 100,000 to 400,000 out of the facility?"

In its release, the Navy said removal of the pipelines is not expected to impact the planned three-year closure timeline after draining the tanks. But Lau said he'd like to see if that timeline could be accelerated too.

"The sooner that we can get every drop of fuel out of that facility from being right over our drinking water aquifer, the better," Lau said.

[James1978]

Poisoned Water: How a Navy Ship Dumped Fuel and Sickened Its Own Crew

1 Jun 2023
Military.com | By James LaPorta , Konstantin Toropin and Patricia Kime

Barely clothed Marines huddled exhausted next to their coffin-style bunks stacked to the ceiling below deck on the USS Boxer after midnight in March 2016. They were extremely tired after a long day resupplying their ship, moving crate after crate dropped off by helicopter.

A couple of the Marines got up from their ad hoc campfire -- gathered around a flashlight -- to grab a drink from a nearby water fountain.

But something was off.

The pungent smell of diesel fuel radiated from the tap. The poison was flowing from their sinks and permeating the laundry machines, the odor filling the mess hall. They’d been told the water was safe, but the Marines reached another conclusion.

"The ship is actually trying to kill us," Travis Sellers, a 20-year-old lance corporal, summarized at the time.

"The fumes were overpowering. You smelled it when you washed your clothes in it, showered in it, when you flushed the toilet," said Sarah Blanton, a former Marine sergeant assigned to the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "The smell was in my hair. I had a friend braid it because I thought it would keep me from smelling it in my sleep."

The men and women didn't know it, but the fuel running through the water lines on the ship wasn't caused by a faulty valve or a corroded pipe. The crew had done this to themselves.

A years-long investigation reveals that the Boxer unintentionally compromised its own water supply in 2016, when it intentionally and potentially illegally dumped diesel fuel into the ocean and immediately sucked the noxious liquid back aboard the ship and into its water supply. Those conclusions can be revealed by Military.com for the first time after interviewing key personnel on the ship at the time of the incident, as well as through a review of documents obtained from sources.

A Military.com Freedom of Information Act request from 2018 shows that the Boxer underwent a significant upgrade to its internal network system that inadvertently deleted emails and email addresses of former Boxer members. Those emails may have mentioned the fuel in the water supply.

The Navy had never publicly acknowledged what happened on the ship and repeatedly responded to document requests by saying that no official paper trail outlining the incident existed.

Now, the service is acknowledging the water contamination for the first time, in a response to this reporting.

“USS Boxer (LHD 4) identified traces of fuel in the ship's potable water system while on a deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2016,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the Naval Surface Force, said in a statement to Military.com on Wednesday. “USS Boxer’s leadership and crew took immediate and appropriate measures to restrict access to the ship's potable water. After conducting a thorough flush and inspection of the ship’s potable water system, fresh water was restored.”

The ship has not experienced any additional water contamination since 2016, according to Abrahamson. “The health [and] safety of our sailors and Marines remains a top priority and clean and safe drinking water is paramount for operational readiness,” he said in the statement.

Some veterans who endured the episode have been left struggling to get help years later, several having their disability claims rejected by the the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In interviews, former Boxer crew members described ailments to Military.com they believe were caused by the diesel. Gastrointestinal problems, skin rashes and burns were all reported in the immediate aftermath of the fuel dump, and conditions such as irritable bowel, excessive menstrual bleeding, lung cysts and even a rare form of lung cancer have all surfaced for the crew in the years after the exposure.

Edwin Emerson, a former Boxer crew member who worked in the ship’s oil lab that was responsible for the fuel dump, told Military.com there's a good reason documents detailing the jettisoning of fuel don't exist: “We can't document that because the captain would get fired.”

"The captain would have never known about it because, when you're doing something that illegal, you're not telling anybody," Emerson added, who served as one of three "oil kings" on the Boxer during the 2016 deployment. "You're not supposed to dump fuel into the ocean. … It does [happen], but it's not legal."

Contacted by Military.com on multiple occasions, no reply was returned from Navy Capt. Michael Ruth, the Boxer's commanding officer at the time of the incident. Capt. Terrance "Terry" Patterson, who at the time was the chief engineer of the Boxer, declined to comment for this story, citing his active-duty status.

Brig. Gen. Anthony M. Henderson, who commanded the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit as a colonel, declined an interview for this story.

Other mid-level officers and senior enlisted from the Boxer who continue to serve on active duty or are now veterans also declined to be interviewed or did not respond to inquiries from Military.com.

What Happened
The USS Boxer is the flagship for the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group. The large, boxy ship carries more than a thousand sailors as crew and around 1,500 Marines. The ship's largely hollow interior is typically packed with dozens of armored vehicles and amphibious craft the Marines would use to land and operate ashore, while the flight deck holds some combination of Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, Harrier jets or Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters.

All of this gear and equipment is designed for one goal -- to enable the Marines to respond at a moment's notice to conflict or disaster.

In 2016, the ship deployed with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to participate in naval exercises around Pohang, a port city off South Korea's east coast. It was moving through that area in the days prior to March 15.

On the 15th, logs from the Boxer and a nearby supply ship -- the USNS Wally Schirra -- say the two met up about 100 miles off the coast of both Japan and Korea in the southern part of the Sea of Japan at 8am and the amphibious assault ship took on nearly 400,000 gallons of diesel fuel for itself, as well as jet fuel for its aircraft. The deck logs for both ships were obtained by Military.com via Freedom of Information Act requests.

After the resupply was done, around 1p.m., according to the Schirra’s logs, the Boxer continued sailing north into the Sea of Japan. The Boxer then turned west to head back toward the Korean coast and Pohang, its own logs show.

Through the day, the data in the logs say that the ship was never further than 150 mi from the shores of either Korea or Japan and its last log entry for the 15th shows it about 80 miles off the coast of Korea. This puts the ship well within both countries' economic exclusion zones -- an area that typically extends out 230 miles from the coast in which a country has rights and responsibilities over natural resources.

For part of that day Machinist's Mate Chief Michael Gonzales, the oil lab's leading chief petty officer and one of the three oil kings on the Boxer, was also serving as the engineering officer of the watch, a rotating responsibility that entails primary responsibility for the main propulsion plant of the ship, including the oil lab.

Gonzales called down to the oil lab where Emerson, one of the other oil kings on the ship, was on watch.

Shannon Arms and Alexander Casto, both former machinist's mates second class, and Hayley Blair, a former junior officer, who worked in the Boxer's oil lab told Military.com that Gonzales ordered the sailors to dump diesel fuel. The exact reason for the dump is unclear, but those in the oil lab suggested they would typically dump when the fuel became contaminated, most commonly with water or sediment. Emerson confirmed that the order came from Gonzales.

All of the sailors described dumping fuel as a common procedure on Navy ships, typically an uneventful action where fuel dissipates into the surrounding water as the ship steams on. They all also said they believed it is illegal to dump fuel, although they couldn't point to a specific law. Outside legal experts consulted by Military.com said that the legality is unclear for warships.

Arms said that, before dumping fuel, the oil lab would usually ask for permission from the engineering officer of the watch, who would then ask permission from the bridge of the ship.

"I remember because the person on watch, Emerson, asked: 'Do we have permission?'" Arms explained. "He [Gonzales] said, 'I'm giving you permission.'

"We came on watch. And I want to say, maybe 10 minutes into watch, he told us to go ahead and align and start dumping."

Arms and Emerson told Military.com that Gonzales told the oil lab to dump the fuel off the starboard, or right, side of the ship. On the left side of the ship, evaporators are routinely sucking up seawater to turn into potable water. To avoid contamination, the sailors explained, it's paramount to keep the ship moving.

Shortly after the fuel was dumped, an "all stop" order came from the bridge, cutting the engine's thrust.

'All Stop'
Arms described a mad scramble as the crew in the oil lab realized that the ship would almost immediately start sucking up the fuel as it sat in stagnant waters.

The ship's log notes that the officers on the bridge ordered the ship to come to a complete stop twice that day. The first instance was at 1:36 a.m. and lasted about 20 minutes. The second was at 9:46 p.m. and it didn’t start moving again until 11:38 p.m. Crew members who spoke to Military.com said that, seven years later, they couldn’t recall the exact timing of the fuel dump.

"Once we started feeding from that feeding tank [for potable water], the entire ship was contaminated," said Casto. "It's in all the lines. It's in everything. You cook with it, you bathe with it. You drink it."

The Boxer creates its own fresh water through a fairly basic and simple process of evaporation. Seawater is heated and then condensed, leaving the salt behind in the process.

However, if there is fuel in the mix, the fuel will evaporate alongside the water and contaminate the system.

Once the fuel was in the water, it would not have been easy to get it out, according to Arms and Casto. Expelling that much water would affect the overall stability of the ship and, even if dumped, the water storage tanks themselves would need to be flushed -- a process that did not occur until two months later, when the ship pulled into the Port of Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates, just south of Dubai, for a mid-deployment voyage repair.

Arms gave another reason for not dumping the contaminated water: "They would now have to admit that someone f----- up," he said.

Gonzales, who retired from the Navy as a chief warrant officer, said he did not recall any water contamination during the 2016 deployment.

"I would say fuel didn't get into the water supply, because I remember correctly, all the water chemistry was sanitary. As far as I can remember, and I have a pretty good memory, there was no dumping of tanks or anything," Gonzales told Military.com.

Multiple Marines and sailors said then-Navy Lt. Dana Lilli, the Boxer's senior medical officer at the time of the incident, informed the ship that the water was safe to drink. Military.com reached out to Lilli, who is now a lieutenant commander, multiple times. She did not respond.

Gonzales added that, "There never would have been any water, unsanitary water, that would have gotten into the system. It's impossible. … This is probably just a mess deck rumor."

However, in addition to interviews with the crew, Military.com obtained documentation proving that fuel was in the Boxer's water supply.

Aaron Rawlings, a former Navy corpsman assigned to a Marine reconnaissance platoon who continues to work in health care, printed out an email from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit that shows fuel had gotten into the water supply on the USS Boxer. The document was authenticated by other Marines who served on the ship.

The email, dated for March 15, 2016, has the subject line "fuel in the water" and is categorized as being of "high" importance. It's signed by the watch officer and tells the crew: "Be advised, there is fuel in the water. There is bottled water on the mess decks for consumption."

Rawlings told Military.com that he was concerned for his Marines after being exposed to fuel in their drinking and bathing water. He wanted the incident documented in case their exposure created health issues later on, so he placed a copy of the email in each of his Marines' medical files.

It is unclear how the oil lab would have explained the sudden drop in fuel for the daily "Fuel and Water Report" -- a detailed accounting of all the diesel and drinking water use submitted to the ship's commander.

Military.com filed requests for those logs but was told that they are retained by the Navy for only three years and have since been destroyed.

Fuel in the Water
When the crew began to notice the pungent smell of fuel coming from the taps, the Boxer found itself unprepared to deal with the tainted water.

The ship provided a small ration of bottled water, but it ran out quickly. Crew members were told that if they wanted drinking water, they could buy it from the ship's store but soon that ran out too.

Nikolas Ross, a former Navy corpsman, and more than a dozen other Marines and sailors -- both officer and enlisted -- interviewed by Military.com said the ship repeatedly claimed the water was safe to drink. Ross said he remembers "the smell and taste, making you feel nauseous."

Problems with drinking water aboard Navy ships is hardly a new phenomenon, nor is a delay in a ship acknowledging issues to a crew. Experts and myriad former sailors regularly relayed anecdotal accounts of fuel contamination while serving aboard ships throughout the Cold War and into the present day.

A December 1975 report from the Government Accountability Office detailed how dumping fuel into the ocean was a common practice for Navy vessels. Congress requested information after the USS Independence dumped 8,900 gallons of aviation gasoline off the coast of South Carolina, which garnered widespread media attention at the time.

Last fall, the Navy had two high-profile instances of water contamination aboard aircraft carriers. One, aboard the USS Nimitz, involved jet fuel -- often referred to by its official designation JP-5 -- getting into the water supply after the crew tried to clean a water tank that they didn't realize contained the substance.

The other involved bacteria in the water system aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln. In that incident of E. coli contamination, videos posted to social media revealed that ship's commander telling her crew amid the crisis that she purposely took a shower on the ship and that it "was marvelous."

"I even tasted the water," she said, adding that it was "good to go."

A subsequent investigation into both incidents, released by the service earlier this month, revealed major systemic issues that hamper a ship's ability to deal with fuel contamination, including the fact that Navy ships don't carry test kits to determine if petroleum products like diesel or jet fuel are in their water.

Meanwhile, the Navy found that there were four missed opportunities for sailors on the Lincoln to identify and flag the bacterial water contamination before it spread and that the leadership waited overnight before alerting the crew.

One main difference between these two more recent cases and the Boxer, however, is that the contamination came from inside the ship and didn't involve any dumping of fuel overboard -- an act that is legally murky.

International treaties such as the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, commonly called MARPOL, clearly prohibit commercial vessels from dumping fuel into the ocean.

The sailors that spoke with Military.com also believed that laws prevented them from just dumping fuel overboard. A 2017 Department of Defense regulation bound Navy warships to that international convention but with a major carveout -- "so far as is reasonable without impairing the operations or operational capabilities of such ships."

Dr. Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell University and a former merchant mariner, said that, while "port states will prosecute people within their waters, if they catch them doing it," enforcing the law on a Navy warship is tricky.

"The problem you have is Navy vessels have sovereign immunity," he said, referring to the understanding that countries cannot stop or search ships of another nation or interfere with another state's property.

Military.com reached out to the embassies of both South Korea and Japan as part of our reporting but did not receive a reply.

Because getting fuel out of water tanks requires completely draining them and washing them, the ship needed to pull into port to fix the problem.

Casto said when the ship pulled into Hong Kong, it still had dirty water. Casto and others interviewed said the ship didn't fully flush and clean out the contaminated tanks for two months.

"We ported in Dubai to fix this," he said. "We sat in Dubai for probably a week, me and my colleagues were on watch 24/7 as water trucks came in to fill up and dump these tanks. … Workers came in and cleaned the tanks."

A video posted online by the U.S. Navy shows the Boxer was in that port from June 23 to June 30, 2016.

Health Effects
Years later, more than a few members of the crew say they have ongoing health problems related to two months of living with fuel in the water.

Blanton said she began experiencing extremely heavy periods right after the exposure -- irregularities that continue to this day. Without regulating her periods with oral contraceptives, she bleeds for weeks at a time.

"I worry that it has affected my fertility, but I haven't really tested. I don't know that I want the answer," Blanton said in an interview.

Casto, who worked in the Boxer's main propulsion aft, told Military.com that he and his spouse are undergoing testing for infertility.

"Me and my wife are having trouble conceiving," he said. "And my genes are not -- my family is not known to have that issue, let's just put it that way."

Veterans may apply for health care and disability compensation with the Department of Veterans Affairs based on whether their illnesses or injuries were related to their military service.

The VA maintains a list of diseases definitively linked to the military depending on service location and era, but for all others, the VA requires that veterans prove a connection that their military service caused their illness or injury, known as "service connection."

This usually requires proof that includes service records; details of any incidents, operational events or accidents; and a letter from a physician, known as a "nexus letter," that connects an illness or injury with that event.

A former Marine who asked not to be named, attempted to obtain documentation of the incident via the Boxer's official Facebook account but was denied after the ship spoke with an unnamed senior medical officer aboard the Boxer, per screenshots given to Military.com.

Without evidence of the mishap, the Boxer veterans are at a disadvantage. Blanton filed a VA claim in 2018 and was denied. She decided not to pursue it because she figured the Navy "would never be held accountable."

At least one veteran who filed a disability claim tied to symptoms they believed were related to the fuel incident was successful, but others have faced similar headwinds to Blanton.

When Nick Croushore, also a former Marine, met with a VA claims representative as he left the service, he told the rep he had an eye problem he knew was the result of fuel exposure.

Croushore had been disposing bags of trash on the ship when he got something in his eye. He ran over to the eyewash station, where he bathed his eyeball with fuel-tainted water.

"I treated myself with an eye patch because I went to the corpsman and he just told me to come back if it got infected. ... To this day, I can't wear contacts in my left eye, and my vision is kinda messed up," he said.

He filed a VA disability claim and was denied for his eye conditions and chronic chest pain. He also was denied for a claim tied to the skin issues he attributes to the fuel exposure.

"I wasn't really mad about my eye or my chest -- people were worse off than I was -- but could we have gotten a little bit of acknowledgment that it happened?" Croushore said.

Much research has been published on the effects of diesel exhaust on the human body, but little is available on the effects of human consumption of petroleum products, including diesel, or having prolonged direct contact with fuel-contaminated water.

Exposure to military fuels causes kidney damage or kidney cancer in male rats, but scientists question the results of animal testing in relation to humans. Research indicates that exposure to jet fuel or diesel can cause acute and chronic central nervous system symptoms in humans like dizziness, headache, nausea, sleep issues, depression and memory impairment, but the findings conducted on this topic are inconclusive, according to a 1996 National Research Council report.

Navy policy on fuel contamination is difficult to find. A Navy medicine publication on water quality aboard ships notes that the crew is responsible for testing the pH and salt content of the water, as well as making sure it is free of E. coli and similar bacteria, but it makes no mention of testing for other compounds.

When the crew of the Nimitz was trying to remove jet fuel from its water supply, the investigation report into the incident said Naval Sea Systems Command -- the unit tasked with ship design, construction and maintenance -- told the ship "to utilize a limit of 0.266 [parts per million]," suggesting the Navy will tolerate some, minimal, level of water contamination with hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbons are a broader chemical category to which substances like jet fuel and ship’s diesel fuel belong.

Chemicals such as benzene that are a natural component of petroleum, as well as toluene and naphthalene, have been linked to long-term health problems, and those are among the biggest concerns when discussing the effects of military fuel exposure on service members and their families, according to Chelsey Simoni, a former Army aviation medic and registered nurse who studies toxic exposures for the nonprofit HunterSeven Foundation.

Simoni said the toxicity of exposure largely depends on the amount encountered and whether the vapors were inhaled, absorbed or ingested. Ingestion is the "least worrisome" because human kidneys are efficient at flushing out toxins, while bathing in water tainted with fuel creates significant risk because warm water opens the skin's pores, she said. Breathing in fuel fumes may pose risks because the particles tend to hang around in the lungs.

"Considering the rates of cancers, especially blood cancers, in diesel mechanics and those in the fuel and fuel-related industries by absorbing alone, the risk is somewhat obvious," she said.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the actual effects of diesel ingestion or inhalation on the body, many of the sailors and Marines on the Boxer have been left wondering whether the incident had anything to do with every unexplained ache, itch, health anomaly and, in at least one case, a death.

Marine Sgt. Daniel Pedersen died on Nov. 26, 2019, at the age of 25 from a rare form of lung cancer called a neuroendocrine tumor. Risk factors include advanced age, a previous risk of cancer, smoking and chemical exposure.

Pedersen's family did not respond to requests for interviews, but Blanton said the death of a respected and loved colleague struck his fellow Marines hard and left them questioning the cause of his illness.

"He was super strong, super athletic and, all around, a good freakin' person, and out of nowhere came this cancer. He didn't smoke. No one who is this healthy should be gone this quick," Blanton said.

Fuel contamination on Navy ships often is discussed on an anecdotal level but, for the roughly 3,000 sailors and Marines assigned to the Boxer in 2016, the poisoning was real and, according to those interviewed for this story, didn't have to happen.

"It was preventable," said Arms. "That's what makes it more infuriating."

But like many incidents that occur aboard U.S. Navy vessels, an expectation to tolerate adversity along with a loyalty to the ship's captain and each other kept the truth secret for more than seven years.

"The Navy's neglect is raising questions about the worth of serving," said a former Marine who worked in aviation on the Boxer and who first provided the tip to Military.com that launched this investigation. "How many more will be put at risk before the Navy takes responsibility for their mishaps?"

[Poohbah]

"Inadvertently."

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[OSCSSW]

Holy Crap that is really bad news. Are there any US civilian drydocks, aside from Newport News that can handle the CVNs? Are West Coast civilian yards certified to do dry dock availabilities of SSNs/SSBNs?

these guys would be very, very angry at the brass!


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Navy Dry Dock Closures Make a Bad Problem Worse
By Maiya Clark & Anna Given
March 23, 2023

In the flurry of news stories about munitions production and aid to Ukraine, the closure of four dry docks at a U.S. Navy shipyard six weeks ago went largely unnoticed. This development, however, will create massive problems for the Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers, the industrial base, and national defense as a whole.

Why did the Navy close three dry docks at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and another at the nearby Trident Refit Facility in Bangor, Washington? Seismic concerns. These dry docks lie on a fault line, and the Navy determined that the risk of damage to ships using these facilities outweighed the risk of more maintenance delays caused by shutting them down.

How bad is it? A Navy report concluded that the earth under one dry dock at Puget Sound may be “subject to liquefaction in a seismic event.” In other words, there is a good chance that the dry dock—ship and all—could be sucked into a sinkhole during a significant earthquake.


The U.S. has only four public shipyards: Puget Sound and Pearl Harbor on the west coast, and Norfolk and Portsmouth on the east. These yards are responsible for maintaining the Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet, i.e., aircraft carriers and submarines. Between them, these shipyards had 18 dry docks. Now four of them (22 percent) are out of commission.

This will hurt the Navy’s ability to maintain and service their fleet. Currently, 36% of the Navy’s attack submarine fleet is either in—or waiting for—maintenance. With four dry docks offline, these numbers will likely get worse.

[kdahm]

Here you go, a list of the largest drydocks in the world. Sort by country, and Noah's your uncle (or nephew, in Senior Chief's case). It looks like Hawaii and Alabama are alternatives. Drydock 6, used for carriers, isn't actually closed because it's included in future planned improvements to it.

Drydock 4 was reopened four weeks ago. Drydock 5 is any day now. The Navy is moving at lightning speed. Problem discovered in late 2022, contract for $76 million let in February, construction start in late March, and almost finished.

The news articles are full of what you'd find in the bilge water after a failure of a head piping fitting.

[OSCSSW]

Here you go, a list of the largest drydocks in the world. Sort by country, and Noah's your uncle (or nephew, in Senior Chief's case). It looks like Hawaii and Alabama are alternatives. Drydock 6, used for carriers, isn't actually closed because it's included in future planned improvements to it.

Drydock 4 was reopened four weeks ago. Drydock 5 is any day now. The Navy is moving at lightning speed. Problem discovered in late 2022, contract for $76 million let in February, construction start in late March, and almost finished.

The news articles are full of what you'd find in the bilge water after a failure of a head piping fitting.

Thanks for setting the record straight old Man. I'm the one on the left with the great hair!

[clancyphile]

Here's a dumb question. Why didn't they ensure the AGS could use the army's 155mm rounds? Seems like common sense...

[kdahm]

Here's a dumb question. Why didn't they ensure the AGS could use the army's 155mm rounds? Seems like common sense...

Three options:
1. They were buried deep into the design history of RN 4" to 5.5" secondaries from the 20's and 30's.
2. They had a very bad case of cranial-rectal superposition
3. It was the Army 155mm, there both Army and not NEW and TRANSFORMATIONAL. Since everything had to be NEW and TRANSFORMATIONAL in order to be any good, the old stuff could never be used.

[James1978]

My understanding is that calling the AGS a "155mm cannon" isn't quite accurate, it's more of a missile launcher for 155mm diameter glide bombs.

Now back when DD-21 was supposed to be 32 ships (64 guns), economies of scale would have yielded an affordable unit price. But at three ships (6 guns, that was never going to happen. In 2004, they were projecting a unit price of $35,000 per round. By 2016, that had leapt up to $800,000 - $1,000,000.

I think the problem is less the barrels, than the below-decks handling system was designed to only handle the LRAP and other custom rounds.