Konstantin Toropin
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 are able to 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.
In fact, 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 simply sank after they went into the water.
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