Investigation of SEALs Drowning Uncovers Allegations of Performance-Enhancing Drug Use, Secret Surgery

MG Paul E Vallely, US Army (Ret)

By Konstantin Toropin
Guest Editorial

A Navy investigation into the drowning deaths of two Navy SEALs released on Friday also revealed that the elite warfare community is still struggling with performance-enhancing drug use and a culture of exceptionalism where members can do things that would be off-limits to regular sailors. The service determined the deaths of the sailors off the coast of Somalia in January during a ship-boarding mission to intercept Iranian-made weapons headed to Yemen were preventable and stemmed from a lack of concern over flotation gear.

But during the investigation, Navy officials also received an anonymous tip of two SEALs “wrongfully using performance-enhancing drugs,” a SEAL “having surgery outside the knowledge and care of U.S. Navy medicine,” and “wrongful consumption of alcohol aboard USS Lewis B. Puller” by a SEAL whose name was redacted.

The Navy investigation stressed that “the allegations raised in the complaint were not root causes” of the decision to conduct the boarding operation or the drowning deaths of the two SEALs. The heavily redacted report says that Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher Chambers, 37, and Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, both from SEAL Team Three, died because they were so overloaded with gear that they sank after they went into the water. The report redacts both Chambers’ and Ingram’s names, often making it impossible to determine whether one or both men are being referenced in the findings.

Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command where the two men died, noted in his letter accepting the investigation that the pair either didn’t know they wouldn’t float or they did and ignored this fact and instead relied on being able to shed gear and activate a life preserver. However, amid those facts was also the anonymous complaint, submitted to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS, in February — just a month after the mishap — which, among other things, alleged that two SEALs in Chambers’ and Ingram’s platoon were taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Due to the report’s heavy redaction, it is unclear whether Chambers, Ingram or both were implicated. Investigators found that one SEAL Team Three member came forward to the unit’s medical department at some point before the deployment and disclosed that he was prescribed testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT, by a civilian doctor in San Diego.

The admission appeared to come after Navy Special Warfare Command leadership told all SEALs that they would be subject to testing for performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs, starting in November 2023. The new drug testing program came more than a year after the death of Seaman Kyle Mullen, a SEAL recruit who had just completed the first leg of the rigorous SEAL training pipeline but died due to acute pneumonia.

However, following his death, a stash of PEDs, including testosterone and human growth hormone, was found in his car, drawing attention to the prospect of drug use within the elite community. Since then, people who are close to the SEALs have told Military.com and other publications that PED use is not only something that occurs but that it is common among operational units.

In fact, at the time of the drug-testing policy rollout, Cmdr. Ben Tisdale, then the spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command, told Military.com that the command hoped its operators would do just what the SEAL in the drowning deaths investigation did — come forward and disclose any prescriptions they may have received from civilian doctors.

The investigation noted that the testosterone therapy was “medically disqualifying for special operators,” and the Navy’s medical policy specifically says that conditions that require the regular taking of testosterone or testosterone analogs are disqualifying. Despite this, the SEAL was allowed to continue taking the testosterone by a Navy doctor “to avoid inducing adverse effects from altering the [testosterone] regimen” and was permitted to deploy.

A second SEAL in the small unit that deployed to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea was also accused of using PEDs. Still, investigators seemed to do little investigating into the matter. The report noted that, when interviewed, the SEAL denied the allegation, and other platoon members also said they didn’t know anything about the claim. The investigation makes no mention of the SEAL ever being tested for drugs. In addition to the performance-enhancing drug use, one member of the team was accused of being “not fit to conduct operations because he received an unauthorized medical procedure in Bahrain” before getting underway with the USS Puller.

While the heavily redacted report does not offer any details about the unauthorized surgery, it does say that SEAL Team Three’s leadership was “aware” of both the procedure and follow-on care. Taken together, the report suggests the small detachment of SEALs from SEAL Team Three were given wide latitude to break the Navy’s own rules and policies with seemingly little consequence while ordinary sailors experience a far harsher reality.

Military.com has reported on one sailor who tested positive for cannabis amid a mental health crisis and treatment. Even though the sailor denied using marijuana, that information was reported back to his command, and they proceeded to punish the sailor with the help of his psychologist. After that reporting, Navy officials confirmed that sailors don’t have confidentiality when it comes to positive drug tests during medical treatment. In contrast, just on PED use alone, the new investigation shows that SEALs are given wide latitude to wean themselves off the testosterone that they quietly had prescribed to them by civilian doctors, and reporting has shown that there is ample legal assistance to challenge any possible consequences if they should test positive.

Last year, Tim Parlatore, an attorney who specializes in representing military clients, particularly Navy SEALs, told Military.com that he was ready to fight any positive PED test results for his clients.

Parlatore noted that “everybody who pops positive must be processed—it doesn’t mean that they have to be separated,” arguing that he didn’t expect many special operators to be forced from the Navy due to the new testing policy. “They’re making a calculated decision that the taking of these legal substances will increase the likelihood that they are successful on the battlefield and they and their brothers come home safely,” Parlatore argued last October.

Meanwhile, in 2022, service members had to win a lawsuit to force the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army to review thousands of general and other-than-honorable discharges awarded to troops over the past decade for problems that may have stemmed from drug use, a military-related mental health condition or sexual assault.

Marine Cpl brought a lawsuit against the Navy. Tyson Manker was dismissed with an other-than-honorable discharge after he was caught using marijuana that he said helped him deal with the trauma he experienced in Iraq in 2003. In 2020, U.S. Special Operations Command, the combatant command overseeing all special operations units, conducted a review that found entitlement within its ranks and a culture that lionized combat experience above anything else in many units across the U.S. military.

“Those who did deploy forward, specifically in some degree of combat, are held as almost an infallible standard bearer for the rest of the organization to emulate — seemingly regardless of if it is a positive or negative standard,” the review found. In addition to the PED use and medical procedure, the investigation also found that “a bottle of alcohol was likely present” on the ship, and that it was “possibly used to share a toast by members of C-Platoon in honor of their fallen comrades contrary to Navy regulations.” The report recommended administrative action to address this incident but did not recommend anyone as the target of the potential action.

The remaining recommendations in the report — which would have likely dealt with the incidents of PED use and the unauthorized medical procedure — are redacted, citing an exemption for internal deliberations.[1]

[1] Military.com News 10.12.2024

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