Jocko Willink Warns Against Nerfing ‘Brutal’ SEAL Training

Retired Navy SEAL officer Jocko Willink published an essay this week warning against altering the severe nature of SEAL training in the wake of Seaman Kyle Mullen’s Feb. 4 death. Mullen died after successfully completing the notoriously difficult “Hell Week” of BUD/S training.

In the essay, published Wednesday, Oct. 12, by FOX News, Willink, a Silver Star recipient and book author, describes “conducting, directing, and overseeing vast amounts of brutal training” during his career as a SEAL. He details some of the SEALs’ desert land warfare training in which trainees simulate the rigors of operating in foreign deserts with the full weight of their gear and equipment, all while enduring explosions, CS gas, and simulated firefights with paintballs. He notes that this particular facet of the BUD/s course is but one small portion of a much larger conditioning process. Furthermore, he cautions that, despite its brutal nature, the training pales in comparison to combat and making it less grueling would ultimately weaken the SEAL teams.

“The SEALs were always sleep deprived and dehydrated,” Willink writes. “And the environment was always too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry. Everyone got cuts, scrapes, and bruises. Sprained ankles, strained knees, and injured backs and shoulders occurred with regularity. Heat casualties were common. Sometimes, in rare but tragic cases, SEALs died in training.”