Kyle Mullen Honored In Manalapan With Dedication Of Nottingham Road

MANALAPAN, N.J.—When the township honored Navy Seaman Kyle Mullen by dedicating Nottingham Road in his honor, his mother, Regina, and other family members in attendance were both proud of Kyle and thankful to the community.

But the plaque now atop the sign on Nottingham Road where Kyle and his brother T.J. grew up, and where Regina Mullen still lives, is a bittersweet reminder of the loss of her "best friend and hero."

"Everybody loved my son," she said, "and I'm just overwhelmed by the the amount of people whose lives he touched."

Kyle Mullen, a native of Manalapan and a graduate of Manalapan High School, died at age 24 on Feb. 4 after completing Hell Week training to become a Navy SEAL.

Manalapan officials called Mullen “a true hero in every sense of the word” and thanked the family for allowing them to honor Mullen with the dedication, which took place May 27.

Regina Mullen said she is happy to have the township honor her son this way, "especially if it gives them a sense of comfort that Kyle will be remembered," she said.

But she already lives with constant reminders of her son, she said.

Regina Mullen raised her sons as an independent mother, who trained to be a nurse in her 40s and took jobs to make ends meet after her divorce. She felt emotionally able to return to work on May 9. Her son T.J. is going to be married and is living on his own now. He'll be married by a Navy pastor from Naval Weapons Station Earle who came to comfort the family after Kyle's death.

"I always had two sons, and now it's like I'm clapping but there's no sound. My right arm isn't there," she said.

But as shocking as her son's death has been to her, it has given her a cause she will not drop - to change how the U.S. military handles safety and medical care for young recruits in their care and to make the military more accountable.

She recently enlisted the help of Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., to explore holding hearings on what is known as the Feres Doctrine from 1950 that prevents members of the armed forces who are injured in active duty from suing the federal government.

On the personal front, she has still has not received her son's autopsy from the Navy. Nor has the investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS, been completed, as far as she knows. No information about it has been released to her, she said.

She hopes to bring the issue of safety of military recruits to a national stage.

"Congress can hold hearings on the Feres Doctrine while they (the Navy) is doing their investigation," she said, referring to her son's case.

All the background on Kyle Mullen that has been published show a young man who not only had promise, but who already accomplished so much: He was a star football player who led Manalapan High School to its first-ever championship in 2014, his senior year, and maintained a 4.4 GPA. He also played baseball for the Manalapan Braves. He was recruited by Yale University to captain the football team and later graduated from Monmouth University. After college, he chose to join one of the most elite U.S. military units: The Navy SEALs.

As part of that group, "he endured everything. But his own Navy didn't care about him," Regina Mullen says.

According to background in a previous Patch article, Hell Week involves five days of intense physical and mental training, plus sleep deprivation.

On that final day of training, Kyle Mullen and another candidate developed breathing problems after completing cold water training called surf immersion in the Pacific Ocean.
One was hospitalized immediately after the training and put on a ventilator; he survived.
Kyle Mullen did not.

Regina Mullen says she has since learned two other trainees were sickened too. And she now understands the Navy has made some changes, including having a medical team on site, not just on call, as was the case with her son.

"My son died on the floor of the barracks with no medical treatment, in the arms of a 19-year-old fellow sailor," said the grieving mother. "I actually don't want the Navy to end Hell Week. My son signed up for those rigorous drills knowing what it would be like. But there needs to be more medical oversight," she said in the previous Patch interview.

As a registered nurse, Regina strongly suspects that her son and the other trainee had swimming-induced pulmonary edema, or SIPE, she said. This is fluid in the lungs caused by vigorous exercise in cold water.

"It's actually pretty common," she said in the previous interview. "Navy SEALS are known to get it, as are triathletes who do long-distance swimming. But a 24-year-old boy does not have to die of pulmonary edema. It's entirely treatable, as that other boy who got proper medical care survived. Instead, they left him on the floor of the barracks to be checked by other 19-year-old boys."

But just as these memories remain, Regina Mullen remembers many other things too.

Her son would have his mom spike the football with him in their yard. He'd watch "The Bachelorette" with her.

As proud as she was of him, "He was proud of me," she said for how she made her career.

And she keeps that in mind as she pushes for changes in the military.

"It gets me through the day to know that Kyle will change lives," she said.