Recruited for Navy Seals, many US sailors wind up scraping paint

NAVAL BASE KITSAP, Washington – A sailor fresh out of the elite Navy Seal selection course slung his gear over his broad shoulder and clomped down a steel ladder into the guts of a Navy ship to execute a difficult, days-long mission specifically assigned to him: scrubbing the stinking scum out of the ship’s cavernous bilge tank.

Hardly the stuff of action movies, but it is how many would-be Seals end up.

The Navy attracts recruits for the Seals using flashy images of warriors jumping from planes or rising menacingly from the dark surf.

But very few make it through the harrowing selection course, and those who do not still owe the Navy the rest of their four-year enlistments. So they end up doing whatever Navy jobs are available – often, menial work that few others want.

The recruits are almost all hypermotivated overachievers, often with college degrees, who have passed a battery of strength and intelligence tests. But many find themselves washing dishes in cramped galleys, cleaning toilets on submarines or scraping paint off aircraft carriers.

Unlike civilian workers, they cannot quit. To walk away would be a crime.

“I’m just thrown away here – a nobody,” the sailor who was assigned to clean the bilge said. “My supervisor doesn’t even know my name.” Like other sailors who were interviewed for this report, he requested that his name not be used as he was not authorised to speak publicly and feared retribution.

Relegating promising candidates who do not quite clear the bar to years of drudgery would be a harsh arrangement even if the Seal selection course were running as designed.

But lately, classes that were always hard became dangerous. A number of sailors were hospitalised. Others were forced to quit if they wanted medical care. And in February, one sailor died.

The course, known as BUD/S, is meant to simulate the extreme stress of special operations combat missions. Recruits who cannot take the long days of struggle and cold announce their decision to quit by voluntarily ringing a brass bell near the beach where they train.

On average, about 70 per cent of each class over the past decade has rung the bell. But the rate suddenly soared in 2021, reaching as high as 93 per cent.

The Navy is now conducting a high-level investigation into what happened. A spokesman said he could not comment on the causes until the investigation concluded.

But in interviews, Naval officers, Seals and sailors who attempted the course say instructors started pushing it beyond what safety regulations allow: kicking and punching recruits, making already gruelling tasks hazardous and, at times, denying medical care to injured sailors unless they first dropped out of the course.

Some candidates turned to illegal performance-enhancing drugs just to get through.

Classes that started with 150 recruits were finishing with fewer than 10.

In Navy records, nearly all the dropouts appeared to be voluntary, but sailors said that, in reality, a majority were sick or injured. It was not unusual, they said, to see men carried to the bell because they could not walk.

After the death in February, the service disciplined three officers and made changes to rein in instructors and provide better medical care. Graduation rates improved. And the Navy says it is working to offer better alternatives for recruits who drop out.

This week, Congress passed an amendment requiring the Defence Department to conduct an independent review of the training.

Things were different before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In those days, sailors were required to train for a regular Navy profession, known as a rate, before they could attempt the Seal course. Dropouts from the course could return to the rate they had trained for.

But in 2006, faced with a mandate to drastically expand the Seals, the Navy began allowing new recruits to go into the course directly.

Not all bell-ringers end up in work they hate. A spate of suicides in 2016 prompted the Navy to improve the options for them.

Many are now trained to become divers, rescue swimmers or explosives experts. But paradoxically, sailors say, the first few to give up in each class have seemed to get the best opportunities.

Many feel cheated, angry or consumed by blame. In October, a sailor threw himself from the fifth-floor window of his barracks shortly after ringing the bell, according to two military officers with knowledge of the suicide attempt who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The sailor lived but sustained serious injuries.

Candidates who drop out of the Seal course are usually given a few days to choose a new Navy job from what they say is generally a very short list. Their civilian skills and qualifications, they say, rarely get much weight.

A spokesman for the Chief of Naval Personnel said in a statement that only a minority of sailors who quit the course end up undesignated, while many go on to fulfilling careers.

The spokesman, Captain Jodie Cornell, added: “The Navy has made substantial efforts over the last couple of years to work with sailors reassigned from BUD/S in order to place them in specific ratings to the benefit of the Navy and the sailor.”

The course is now meticulously scripted, and physical abuse is forbidden.

To get into the course today, candidates must pass a demanding physical conditioning course that weeds out dozens of hopefuls.

Even so, graduation rates have not improved. And in the beginning of 2021, they took a dive.

Why the course suddenly got so much tougher is a mystery to sailors who attempted it in that period.

The Navy says it cannot comment while investigations are in progress. Whatever the reason, sailors say, the course took a vicious turn.

One sailor – a 27-year-old with a computer engineering degree and top physical fitness scores – was carrying a 300-pound log up a steep sand berm with six other men when, he and other witnesses said, an instructor lunged at him, kicking him in the back with both feet, knocking the whole team to the sand with the log on top of the sailors. When they got up and hefted the log again, the sailor said, the instructor punched him in the head.

The sailor never complained about the beating. A week later, a crashing wave threw another sailor’s helmet into his face, breaking his jaw and giving him a concussion. When he asked to go to the medical clinic, he said, the instructor who had hit him told him that he would have to quit the course to see a doctor. He rang the bell.

With his head still pounding a few weeks later, he was ordered to pick a new job. “The options were terrible,” he recalled. “Everything was basically scrubbing the deck on an aircraft carrier.”

Desperate to avoid years of mind-numbing toil, he refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19, and the Navy discharged him. A few sailors told The New York Times that they sought similar exits. Others attempted suicide and were discharged on medical grounds. NYTIMES