New Jersey mourns loss of local SEAL candidate as Navy investigates his 'Hell Week' death
The day after the death of Navy SEAL candidate Seaman Kyle Mullen was announced, tributes poured in for him as the training gauntlet known as “Hell Week” also came under public scrutiny.
A former football star at Manalapan High School and later Yale University, the 24-year-old Mullen died Friday in San Diego, hours after finishing the most arduous portion of the Navy SEAL selection process. The cause of his death is under investigation.
On Monday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy opened his media briefing with a tribute to Mullen after having spoken with his mother via phone.
“He represented the very, very best of our state and our country,” Murphy said. “I will be directing all state flags to be lowered in his honor and his memory.”
'Everybody loved him': Navy probes SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen's death after 'Hell Week'
No date is set for that yet.
Manalapan High School football coach Dominick Lepore said Mullen’s uniform number, 44, will be retired from use during a ceremony in the fall.
Mullen’s final season of football was at Monmouth University, where he played on the defensive line as a postgraduate in 2019.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
What is Hell Week? Retired SEALs explain
As the Navy investigates Mullen’s death, the practice and purpose of Hell Week is under scrutiny. The Asbury Park Press, part of the Paste BN network, spoke with two retired Navy SEALs. Their names have been withheld to allow them to speak freely about the process. Both completed Hell Week several years ago, one as an enlisted seaman and the other as an officer.
Hell Week runs from Sunday through Friday, a five-and-a-half day test for the SEALs’ BUD/S class, which involves underwater demolition, survival and combat tactics. It comes in the fourth week as candidates are assessed for the Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command. A majority of the candidates do not finish the week.
“You’re awake from Sunday morning through Friday evening,” said the former enlistee, who said most of the time is spent cold and wet, and much of it underwater. “Hell Week is the ultimate vetting process. It’s not for the instructors’ cadre to find out about you. It’s about you to find out about you.”
The endurance aspect of it is critical, he said.
“Hell Week is kind of a simulated combat,” he said. “Anybody can have enough adrenaline to get them through a firefight. But when the adrenaline wears off, can you keep going? That’s the difference — that’s what makes a SEAL or any type of special operator — the ability to keep going, while still performing at a high level, no matter what.”
The former officer said outside perceptions of Hell Week sometimes differ from reality.
“Some people lately have been questioning the methods. Why do you have to carry logs for a long period of time? What does that have to do with combat?” he said. “Hell Week is a necessary part of SEAL training. It pushes an individual past what they thought was mentally possible.
“Hell Week is as real as it can get to what it could be like overseas — the lack of sleep, the need for critical thinking skills to do the job well in a combat scenario where there is no reset button.”
He painted a picture of “mass confusion, instructors screaming, smoke-filled environments, concussion grenades going off in safe bins. It’s coordinated chaos, but the students don’t know that.”
Both said, in their Hell Week experiences, there were safeguards.
“Students are given routine hygiene and medical assessments throughout the duration of Hell Week,” the former enlistee said. “Depending on the water temperature of the ocean (relative to the season) it is common for the instructor staff to randomly pull individual students from the water to measure body temperature via rectal probe.”
He also said by the time SEAL candidates reach Hell Week, they are in peak fitness.
“These are the healthiest and most physically fit guys on the planet,” he said. “Never in your life are you in as strong a physical condition as you are right before you go through Hell Week.”
Follow Jerry Carino on Twitter: @NJHoopsHaven