an update tonight on a story we've been reporting for over a year the U.S Navy is now accepting responsibility for the death of seal candidate Kyle Mullen a 24 year old Manalapan native who died after completing the notoriously grueling hell week training in February 2022 in its investigation the Navy acknowledged having quote holy inadequate Medical Care and failures across multiple systems that led to a high number of Steel candidates being put at risk of serious injury it's validation that Kyle's mother Regina a nurse has known in her gut for more than a year but it doesn't bring him back Regina Mullen joins me now Regina Mullen it's so good to see you I just want to know what you felt when you were briefed on this report from the Navy's investigation and unfortunately validated all that I was saying so that part was I guess positive some of the medical changes still need to be addressed further and more at an elite standard so and it's concerning to me that some of the people that cleared my son's Health are still in the positions out there which is potentially putting for future candidates not only misdiagnosed at risk for deaths that's very concerning to me and I was extremely upset that right now no one's in trouble any serious those what they put out to the public saying those letters they're not that's not punishment they're just transferred if in the real world in the civilian world if anyone misdiagnosed and someone was murdered and many many are permanently injured for life at a young age and if that happened someone would be in jail or medical license pulled or be dismissed from their careers that is not happening as of yet and that's very disturbing to me and the seals investigated themselves and they couldn't do it obviously because then the big Navy had to step in but now they're saying it's going to go to legal and it's going to go back to the seals to come and that I want that process to stop there needs to be oversight Congress needs to really step in for an independent oversight in the Navy right now should be acting a lot sooner than later to um indict military Court martial there is enough evidence on everybody involved from the top from the Admiral to all the instructors and those medical team this report was egregious on a lot of levels not the least of which was the fact that it cites that these uh Medics um who were supposed to intervene they not only did they not intervene they sometimes participated in the abuse and they were not trained so what's your confidence level that accountability will come to be here zero right now zero if it goes back to the seals the public nobody should try to even be a CEO not not whatsoever because they don't care you've had an ally in New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith who is now vowing to have some congressional oversight there um what can you tell us quickly about what you believe he'll do to intervene from you know what Congressional members can do I believe that he needs a congressional hearing uh there's this also this other investigation called the GAO investigation and that's outside the military in and of itself for safety that needs to be done and that Congressional hearing because it's just me being you know The Grieving mother there are testimonies firsthand I flew a man in and he gave the testimony to the uh the chief of staff to the chairman of the armed service committee and I like to know when they're going to start doing something because if our military is not going to hold people accountable severely not just you know a letter in their file that we're down the road they become Admiral or not medical license polls this will continue it got out of hand because no one has ever been held accountable there needs to be Court martials there needs to be demotions or discharges from the military and it needs to not be later it needs to be right now what message are they sending to the public that they can't do their job they can't hold people accountable so why would anyone join I don't know Regina Mullen I'm thank you so much for your time I'm going to leave with something that you've shared with me that your son used to live by which was to be better and I'm sure that that's the message that you'd like to give to the Navy right now to do better and do better yes thank you Mullen thank you so much thank you very much [Music]