Shawn Ryan Show
#177 Captain Brad Geary - The Sinister Games the Military Plays in Hiding the Truth
Fri, 28 Feb 2025
Captain Bradley Geary is a Navy SEAL officer with a distinguished 24-year career in Naval Special Warfare. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2000 with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and completed SEAL Qualification Training with class 234. Geary has served in various leadership roles, including at SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO, SEAL Team FOUR, and as Commanding Officer of Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command. In 2022, Geary faced controversy following the death of SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen during "Hell Week" training. He was accused of dereliction of duty and negligent command supervision, leading to a board of inquiry scheduled for November 2024. Geary defended the SEAL training process, arguing its effectiveness in preparing warfighters, while acknowledging the need for refinement. As of December 2024, disciplinary efforts against Geary were dropped by the Navy. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org Brad Geary Links: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-geary Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bradleyandamy/ X - https://x.com/bradleydgeary Civilian Military Defense Fund - https://www.cmdf-inc.org Stand with Warriors - https://standwithwarriors.org Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened during the Kyle Mullen investigation?
Kyle Mullins, Bud's candidate, died in training, died of what we believe to be performance-enhancing drugs, a lot of evidence, and basically the U.S. Navy kept reinvestigating this until the performance-enhancing drugs disappeared, and then they basically... pended on you, the commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Training Center, or whatever they're calling it today.
Yeah, yeah, me and Eric Ramey, that's right. And so I wanted to bring you back on. We got a lot of exposure. You came on, Jason, you came on, and your other interning. Yep, Davis Yelms from the Stanford Warriors Foundation. Yep, we're still with him as well, yeah. Got a lot of exposure. I know my personal friend and attorney, Tim Parlatori, jumped on board.
We got a ton of congressmen, senators, a lot of attention. And the case was ultimately dismissed. But I know they're still coming at you for some stuff. And I just kind of wanted to do an update with you. You interviewed with Secretary Head Seth and Director Gabbard. And I want to talk to you about what that is and if you do have a place in the new administration.
And so, yeah, it's good to have you back. Good to be back.
Thanks for having us. It means a lot to us. My pleasure. To start, we have to do the disclaimer that obviously everything I say here today is my own opinion. Brad Geary is not representative of the Navy. or Naval Special Warfare or the Department of Defense in general.
These are all my opinions and my understandings of the facts as I understand them in our entire case and everything that's happened since our last show, for sure. And to that point, big win with them dropping the case.
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Chapter 2: Why did the Navy's process come under scrutiny?
You know, as you released on social media, the signed document dated 13 December 24, where Amy and I basically signed it, both signed it saying, Sean, the lies finally crumbled under the weight of truth. Thank you for being a pivotal voice for truth. Blessed are the peacemakers, Brad and Amy Geary. Oh, man. Thank you.
It's huge. Man, your show was a pivot point. This is awesome. Yeah. Changed the whole thing. Everything. I love this. This will be hanging here in the studio along with all the other stuff from guests. I appreciate it, man. This is an honor. Thank you.
Our honor, too. And we thank you. Thank you for being a continual voice for truth for me and so many others.
All right, so let's get into it. Yeah. So you came on, what, I guess it was about, what, six months ago? A little longer?
Somewhere around there. Yeah.
And got a lot of attention. Yeah. Real fast. What happened?
What happened? So, like I alluded to, what we hoped and what we expected. Before I get into that real quick, I do want to highlight something I think we've seen here. It's interesting because it all plays back toward leadership, which we talked a lot about in the last episode.
Years ago, when I first took command of SW Team 1, one of my task unit commanders sent us an article called Power Causes Brain Damage. The Atlantic published it, I want to say 2014 to 17 time frame, I think. Really, really interesting. And it's not a new idea, right? I think it was Lord Acton said, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But now in the modern day, we've been able to study that psychologically and actually do magnetic brain mapping and see what happens in the brains of those who have authority for long periods of time. And it turns out it's not great. So this article lays that out.
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Chapter 3: How did Captain Geary defend against the Navy's accusations?
And so they talk about how being in a position of authority and power for a long time, the rules don't seem to apply to people and how that can be a dangerous slope. So it's good that they talk a little bit about it, but they don't take it far enough because they don't really say anything other than, be careful that doesn't turn into you. Well, okay, not helpful.
And what this article does is breaks it down even further into how to stop that from happening. There's ways. The point is you have to have a mechanism in place to stay humbled, stay grounded. Some examples from the article. Franklin Roosevelt had an advisor that he made call him by his first name all the time. So he wasn't allowed to call him Mr. President or anything else.
And the reason is the minute we established a hierarchical order, You and I both know, no one ever tells the boss the truth. We sugarcoat it, we write it in our sit reps, and we massage it so that it doesn't sound as bad as it was back at the beginning. And so he knew that if I have an advisor, they're never going to tell me the full truth, whether they mean to or not.
And over time, that creates a gap in my understanding of what's actually going on with the organization I'm leading. and how I'm being perceived as a leader. So the point is we all need people in our lives who are willing to look us eye to eye as an equal, as a peer, not in a hierarchical status and basically call us on our BS. That's one example.
The article gives a bunch of other ways on how to do this, how to stay grounded. Another one, I can't remember the name, but she was some bigwig in some organization and She comes home to tell her mom she just got excited about getting selected to this huge board, and she's all proud of herself, and her mom's like, hey, before you get to that, go to the grocery store and get me some milk.
And so her mom did it deliberately. And she said something like, leave that damn crown in the garage. So when you come home, you're not a bigwig anymore. You're not super important. You're not puffed up on your ego. You are my daughter or my son or you are Franklin in that case. But it's very interesting, and it takes a deliberate approach. We do not talk about that in the military. Yeah.
Not only do we not talk about it, this is super interesting. they teach these leadership concepts before your first commanding officer tour. And prior to that, there's a lot of leadership development stuff. Here's what's super, I think, backwards is once you're done with your commanding officer tour, there's no more real big leadership development that you do especially prior to major command.
There's like a one-week course that's just very surfacy. Well, ironically, from this article, that is precisely when we should be doubling down on our leadership development and making sure we have checks and balances as these people are continuing in positions of authority, climbing that chain of command. So right when we should do more, When we know from science, we're actually doing less.
So we're mixing this up, and we're putting it backwards. And I think there's some problems I've seen, certainly within Naval Special Warfare with some of my peers, as I've watched this take place in real time.
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Chapter 4: Why did Congress get involved in the case?
And so when a commander decides to do something in that realm, they become incredibly over-emotional to that decision, on average. I'm summarizing 15 years, 16 years of seeing it. They become rooted in this, if you're defying the system, if you're defying my choice to prosecute you, you're defying me.
and they take on this kind of insubordinate feel and communication pattern, even with me, you know, through their agents and SJAs, often they cut me off from even being able to go and talk to them, right? No, you need to handle that through my SGA, right? It becomes a very personal attack to them.
And some cannot separate us rebutting the facts, pushing back on the prosecution, suing for innocence, and not take that as a personal attack on their decision-making.
Which is an attack on the institution, which we would defend.
Right. Yeah. Jeez. So one guy, one guy wrote you a letter of recommendation and said, I told you.
Well, three of them offered you the letter, but even one of the other guys, and this is one of the things I, I don't want to get too far ahead, we'll talk about this, but this is one of the things I talked to Secretary Hicks at the ballot when I interviewed with him, is... One of the other guys, same thing. We're going to write a letter for you. You're a great dude. This is unfair. This is unjust.
I can't believe this. We should treat our teammates better. I can't believe we've let this happen to you. Brad, but what you really want to do is see this process through and go to the Board of Inquiry because that's how you get vindicated in the end is by following this process. To which I replied, sir, I appreciate the letter. No, no.
When I have a thousand data points showing the process is untrustworthy, the answer isn't hope for the best and keep trusting it. I believe we have, back to our oath to the Constitution of the United States, as officers specifically,
We have a moral obligation when we see something like this happening to stand up and say no, to stand up for the truth and confront the injustice, confront the process or the system that is acting in unethical ways, and in some cases, illegal ways, and obliterate it, expose it at all costs. And that's really what we've done here, what we did with the episode with you.
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Chapter 5: What role did evidence and investigations play in the case?
and ramped them up, alleging cause of death against my leadership and Eric Ramey, saying our failures to, I don't know, oversight medical and conduct safe operations resulted directly in Kyle Mullen's death. Eric Ramey was the doctor. The doctor, yes, thank you. So they actually made these sound almost like homicide charges. Like negligent homicide charges.
Negligent homicide charges, but all administratively, in what they say is a non-punitive, And I was like, well, that stung. That stung.
And what's interesting about that, too, is technically, after nonjudicial punishment doesn't happen, and you convene these administrative board of inquiries, which are supposed to be nonpunitive, they're supposed to just cut and paste the same charges from before and adjudicate those in an administrative fashion.
Very abnormal for them to decide on their own, administrative navpers, on their own infinite level of wisdom. That's probably not the best way to say that. Yeah, well... Let me backtrack. I mean no disrespect or disdain by saying that. And we forgot my opening disclaimer. I can't believe we did it. Everything I say here today, obviously, just like last time, is my own personal opinion.
And based upon the facts as I perceive them and understand them, nothing I say represents the United States Navy or Naval Special Warfare. And in no way do I mean any disrespect to any senior officers or disdain to any public officials in anything we say here today.
I mean, I think it's important to note that we don't actually know if it was NAVPERS who changed the charges because it went up to Chief of Naval Personnel, Admiral Cheeseman. He actually was the one to convene the board, to notice the board. His signature on there, just like the withdrawal letter, he was the one to start this process against us. A couple things to note there.
One, I've talked to a ton of lawyers, including myself. I've never seen...
Would you say the process against you, you're talking about upping the charges almost?
New charges, order of inquiry, official notice of a BOI. Yeah, with the new charges. But one, I've never seen the CMP be the person who convened a board. Like, I mean, pulling it up to his level is distinct in and of itself. I had our military counsel that was assigned kind of reach out and see if anybody else had seen that. No one. So what's interesting is Admiral Cheeseman was on the e-mail.
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Chapter 6: How did the Navy respond to congressional pressure?
So we said, all right, well, now that you've elevated and said I ran an unsafe command resulting in Kyle's death, we want access to that investigation. Denied.
And that's one reason why they wanted to avoid court-martial here. In court-martials, you would have a judge order production of exculpatory material in the possession of the government. We don't have that in an administrative board. That's one of the parts they get to end run.
And the only way to really compel them is to file an independent federal lawsuit for injunctive relief from a judge to get that. So they know they can deny us all day, and the recourse is difficult. Jeez.
Yeah. It's how the administrative process, and this is part of the problem with the system, is that they say it's non-punitive, but it really is punitive. Because through that administrative process, you can give me another honorable discharge, all administratively, You can demote me in retirement. Separately administratively, you could take my trident. All administratively.
Those are very punitive things. And you and I both know, and you, having all served active duty, you give someone an other than honorable discharge, you're ruining the rest of their life, potentially. Good luck getting a job. And they can do that administratively. No, no, that's not non-punitive. That's very punitive. And being shy of a court of law or court martial,
they can subvert due process laws because, well, this is non-punitive. So it's a play on words and it allows them to basically hide information that they know would vindicate you because they want to meet their own state objective. I mean, even when this board was happening and we started fighting it and trying to get this access to information, And I was going public with a few outlets.
One of the people from NAV Press, his name is a commander, goes on the record with one of these publications and said something about, we will find Captain Gary accountable. It's like, hang on a minute, dude. A board of inquiry is supposed to be an objective, fact-finding administrative board. And you're already talking in the open press about, you will find me accountable?
Sounds like a predetermined outcome. Yeah. Almost like it's consistent with the entire process we've seen that has been very manipulative.
Well, and to show you the general disdain they have for discovery in this process, back in 2018, actually 2016, there was a federal case out of the Eastern District of New York where The entire case was remanded to a new BOI because there wasn't sufficient discovery given, meaning sufficient evidence provided about unlawful command influence specifically.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does the military face regarding transparency?
I stopped by my own representative's offices and said, hey, I'm here from Colorado. Not a single response. Why do you think that is? I think, I mean, my opinion and I think what we're seeing is that they generally support institutional corruption as long as it fits their ends, right?
And they didn't want to do anything to embarrass the administration in that time period and didn't want to do anything that could be at all tracked back to an administration that was going to an election. And so they just ignored us, right? There should be bipartisan issues. Yeah, truth is bipartisan.
Everyone should care about this. Yeah. It's a big deal. What a shame. What a shame. I mean, it's ironic now that obviously this administration is doing some very interesting things. And I've heard some of the criticisms is, oh, you're politicizing roles that are supposed to be apolitical.
And I have to laugh because it's like, no, the people that are being fired allowed those roles to become politicized. This is the correction measure. This is the return to the politicization. And the military should be apolitical. We 100% should be. But we've lost our way as a military, and I think we're seeing the correction come. Great example, I mentioned Beef Drexler.
He was one of the other three wrapped into this thing with us.
He and I were great, but we were having coffee, and he was telling me how one of his kids, I can't remember whether it was son or daughter, but one of his kids, he was just talking to the kid and said, hey, I'm curious what's going on with all the recruitment challenges and why people aren't joining the Navy and the Marine Corps and the duty in general.
And his kid said, well, yeah, Dad, we all see it at high school level, and it's just become very politicized. And Beef said, well, the military is apolitical, though. And his kid just looked at him, eyebrow raised, like, really? You're going to say that after what's happened to all of you guys? And he had to shrug his shoulders and be like, yeah, you're right. I mean, the public saw this.
Kids were seen in high school. You can't fool kids. They saw the politicization of the military and now finally we're coming back to being, focusing on lethality, focusing on war fighting. Like, it was so needed. So needed.
So what was it that kind of turned the tides then? Was it all the congressmen and senators? It was.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of institutional loyalty over constitutional duty?
What the fuck is going on, man? Well, we're seeing, I mean, we were just talking about this in the car. I think what we're seeing with this election is somewhat of a, it's a beautiful thing because it's a peaceful revolution in a lot of ways. It's the American public seeing all this happen for so long in so many different forms saying, like, enough. We want radical transparency and accountability.
And so you're seeing that. You're seeing President Trump execute that through Elon Musk with Doge. You're seeing it through Secretary Higgs. That's what he's doing right now, radical transparency and accountability.
And I think the way we've done business in the past is irrelevant because of the way – the things you've talked about on this show, the shift from legacy media to long-form podcasts, the –
the shift from trusting a news source to give you the truth to let's actually find out from the source themselves and stop trusting people to filter, package it up into an executive narrative and give it to me as they see fit based upon their bias. And so it's a massive revolution.
And I think we're seeing the same, we're going to need to see the same things in the Navy and the Department of Defense in general is a shift to understanding that, hey man, the old days are gone from you being able to send a three line public affairs officer narrative
Let that appease the public and the Navy all while you kind of say, don't look over here while we administratively punish these people on the namesake of good order and discipline and accountability. No, sailors are tired of it. And they're going to need to evolve back to Gen Z to be relevant to what this generation expects as they enter the workforce and are the larger dominant part of it now.
We've got to change everything. We're going to change everything. They're going to demand radical transparency just like the American public's demanding it now. And I don't mean operationally. We shouldn't tell of our top secret stuff. But how we handle these types of things, we have to be more radically transparent.
And if you don't, if they don't, if they fail to evolve, you're going to have more guys like me sit in this chair calling them out. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean... So the case got dismissed, but now they're coming after you again. Yeah.
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