Vindicated w/Captain Brad Geary

ReformCon 2025 and Building What Lasts

We need to talk. It's been a rough ride. From a culture bent on burning itself down, to attacks from within. But by the grace of God, we've been given a moment. A chance to make lasting changes. We can rebuild what's been torn down.

But we have to build with what will last. The Gospel of the Kingdom. This April, let's sit down. Let's talk about what matters. And together, we'll build something that lasts. ReformCon 2025. Tickets are limited.

Lord willing, we'll see you in Tucson.

Non-rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie? Or are you going to bite?

We're being delusional.

Delusional? Yeah. Delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me.

What? What?

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

It doesn't really hurt.

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pastor.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not. You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just FF.

I never know how to say that word. And a just hen. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules and do them. I am the Lord. That is Leviticus chapter 19 verses 35 through 37.

Introduction and Sponsor Read

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. Sorry for the mess up at the beginning. Trying to do too many things at once. I am flying solo today other than my guests who I will introduce here in a minute.

Pastor Jeff was trying to get back today from Ohio, but got stuck again. For whether it's like the third or fourth time he's gotten stuck over there. He's been doing some work for EAN this week in Kentucky and Ohio.

We should have bills in there. Maybe today, actually. Zach Conover couldn't be on today either, so I'm just flying solo. But excited for the show. I'm going to get into here really quickly. First, I want to thank our sponsors.

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Put an apology in the coupon code and get 5 off your order. And he will match 5 to end abortion now to help us save babies. So, let's just get right into it. I have returning. I'll introduce Brad first since I already mentioned his name.

Captain Brad Geary. Navy SEAL. Awesome brother. Become an amazing friend. And I'm grateful to have him back. So, what's up Brad? Welcome back.

Good to see you. Good to be back.

Really appreciate you, man.

Yeah, likewise. And then, of course, his attorney. And our attorney for Staying with the Warriors, who's back on for like the gazillionth time. Davis Younce. And every time he comes back, his beard is better.

Very jealous.

Navy Vindication and the Dismissal of Brad Geary's Case

So, we'll start in chronological order here. First, you know what? I'm just going to play this. If you guys have seen with Brad on before, he got introduced to Staying with the Warriors. We've been representing him with the whole mess he got falsely accused of when he was commander at Bud's.

And we found him a couple times to talk about that and just been helping to support him and pray for him. And I'm going to play this clip here real quick and just introduce it. So, this was... What was the date on that?

That would have been...

What was that date?

December 12th or 13th.

Yep. Yep.

That's correct. So, I got a call from Davis, who broke the news to me. And I immediately picked up the phone and called Brad. And I was like, are you kidding me? And he's like, how did you hear?

Davis.

Davis. So, let me play this just real quick. We'll play a section. So, Sean Ryan's reading a letter that Brad received. I'll play it. Oh, sorry.

From Chief of Navy Personnel to Captain Bradley Geary. Commander, Navy Region Southwest. Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command. Notification of administrative show cause, dismissal. One, following the show, cause, decision, and reference A, you elected to appear before a board of inquiry.

Since initiating this process and through legal counsel, you raised numerous manners to Commander Navy Region Southwest, which resulted in my decision to grant a continuance to afford you more time for preparation to ensure the additional information you requested would be available in sufficient time prior to the BOI.

Two, since granting your last continuance, I have reviewed your case again and after careful consideration, determined that you are no longer required to show cause for retention in accordance with reference B.

Case dismissed. So, I talked to...

Man, how awesome is that? So, you were back, you were on Sean Ryan what, back in like the summer, right? It was like June, July, maybe somewhere in there?

I'm trying to remember the exact date. Yeah, somewhere around... Actually, I think I recorded before that. It just took...

Oh, that's right.

It took a good like 10 weeks for them to edit it.

We ended up...

We sat there for probably eight and a half hours and they edited that down to about six. And so, it took some time to get that dialed in.

That's right. Yeah, that was a good episode. I think that might be the longest episode he's had, which is saying a lot because he's got some long ones.

Not all I wanted to have for sure.

Great episode though, if you guys want to check that out. But, yeah. So, just, man, amazing news. I've been excited to talk about this for a minute. We finally got an opportunity to do so. But, yeah. So, tell us about that, what's going on there and we'll bring Davis on for the legal side of it.

Sure, man. It's so good. I mean, God gets all the glory for this one, clearly. He showed us each step to take along the way. Someone said recently, man, Brad, it was amazing how you masterfully strategized this whole thing like a chessboard from day one and set these pieces in motion.

I had to laugh out loud saying, no, no. It was really like walking through a fog where I had no idea where we were going. But, every single step we took was done prayerfully and in consideration of are we speaking or are we making this decision based from our pain or from an attempt to glorify God and take a step out of faith and based upon the principles that we believe in.

And we knew that as long as we did that, wherever each step took us, we could sleep well at night and know that we made those steps deliberately and not haphazardly and not out of rash human emotions.

And so, it was good and God was faithful and he walked us through that almost three-year process there.

Wow.

So, I was out on the front lawn on a separate call and I got a phone call that morning. I had no idea it was coming. And I said, it was the legal office at our Tycom. And I was like, hey, I got to hang up, dude.

I think I'm in trouble again. I'm getting a call from Jax. That was my first instinct. And they said, hey, case has been dismissed. It's for all intents and purposes as if it never happened. Words he used and they said, you're free to retire.

So, at this point, we've now submitted for our retirement as of a few weeks ago and we're starting that process. Lots of medical appointments involved in that. Turns out, almost 30 years of activity service, 25 of those is Navy SEAL, isn't so good on the body.

So, we're now tossing those tees, dotting those I's and figuring out all the problems that I've kind of just dealt with over the last couple decades. But we're in a big place. It's funny. It's like taking off a 1 ,000-pound rucksack, but those muscles are still tense and tight after almost three years of just that strain.

And so, it really took us the whole Christmas season to really focus on breathing and decompressing and just being thankful. And so, we're in a great place right now as a family. We're spending this season in gratitude because God's good, man.

He's good.

Yeah, amen. Praise the Lord. Well, Davis, what are your thoughts on that just from a legal perspective?

Man, there's so much to unpack about all of this. What I will say from my perspective is God laid the plans for everything that happened in this case a long time ago, right, before you or I met Brad. And it's just fascinating how all that came together.

The right people came together at the right time, Sean Ryan, and just the way everything built from just a willingness to try to jump in and do what we believed was the right thing. So, this is not unprecedented what happened to Brad as far as this BOI getting dismissed.

But just so everybody can understand, I mean, this was an attempt by the Navy to label to blame Brad for a death, to label him as something other than an honorable service member and to take away his retirement after close to 30 years of service.

I mean, that's what was at stake. Short of a court-martial, this is administratively the worst thing they could do to an officer. So, this is a career. This is a pension. This is a reputation. This is honor that was at stake.

That's how serious this was. So, it's hard to describe unless you've gone through it what it is like for someone to experience the relief of knowing, okay, this is going away now, and I'm going to be able to finish out my career.

I'm going to be able to retire honorably, and I'm going to be able to hang up my hat and walk into the next plans that God has for me without this stain hanging over my reputation. So, just an amazing blessing from God the way this all worked out.

Has there Brad, has there been any pushback from the mother? I know that it was kind of causing a lot of issues for you early on.

Yeah, she's upset. She went vocal with a few different news outlets to include I think Good Morning America had her on recently. And she's frustrated. And like we've discussed at almost every time I've gone public, rightly so.

Sure.

Because she was never given the full truth. And I do hope that she and the family get some closure here soon. We just hit in fact, just I think it was last week, February 4th was the three-year anniversary of when Kyle died.

The family, we deliberately sat together and prayed for her and the whole Mullen family that day. And we really do pray for closure for them and for reconciliation. One day would be such a God-glorifying thing to see.

Yeah, she has my phone number. I still hope for the day where we've established comms again and can repair what's been broken.

Yeah, that's such a good point. I hadn't even thought about just praying for her. And like you said, you've been vindicated, but she still hasn't got any real answers from the death of her son. And now the Navy's just kind of saying trying to dismiss it, brush it under the rug like nothing happened.

So, yeah, that's got to be rough for sure. So do you guys I'll ask you both. And this will kind of bring us into the other part of this conversation. But if Trump doesn't get elected, do you think this happens?

Do you think that the charges are dropped?

Davis is shaking his head. I think it was multivariable. In the end, you can't hide from the facts and the evidence that we had on our side.

Sure, sure.

So, I mean, when Jason Ware, my original attorney, before we linked up with Davis who joined the team, and then, of course, everyone's tracking Tim Parlatory and Mark Jessup, another fantastic Navy JAG that was assigned to our case as well.

We had quite the legal team by the end. But everyone that looked at the evidence kept telling us, hey, victory is absolutely going to happen. Because you can't run from these facts and evidence we have.

They're slam dunk nuggets of info that people fed us over the three-year battle. It's just a matter of how long and what it looks like. So, I think victory would have looked differently had President Trump not been elected.

But it was going to happen either way. It was just a matter of time and how it manifested.

Yeah.

Davis, why were you shaking your head?

Well, I was shaking my head because I don't think the BOI would have been dismissed if it was not for the election of Trump. I mean, I 100 agree with Brad. This was a case to win. The facts were very, very clear.

You can't change them. The reality was very, very clear. This was political and motivated by things we can get into later as to how it even got this far. So, I don't think the outcome would have been different.

But I think that it wouldn't have been dismissed like this if it wasn't for a change in leadership. So, it was an opportunity, quite frankly. It was an opportunity for the Navy to step away and do the right thing when President Trump was elected.

The right thing was there for them to do all along. I believe we were going to reach this conclusion regardless. But it was a huge blessing that it happened this way for many, many reasons.

So, for people like me, can you explain what a BOI is?

Yeah, yeah. So, it's what we call the administrative separation process for an officer in the Navy. So, it's a board of inquiry. That's what they call it. So, think of it. The only way to understand it outside of the military is to think of it like a trial.

It is very similar to a trial. It's an administrative process. So, when someone in the military has more than six years of service in, they can't simply be kicked out without going before a board of inquiry or an administrative separation board.

So, it feels a lot like a trial. You have three service members that act as the jury. And then there's a legal advisor. So, it's slightly different than a criminal trial because jail is not on the table.

It's an administrative process. The burden of proof is actually lower. But discovery, all the aspects that you think of of a criminal trial are part of that process.

Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Sorry, I was going to say it's worth bringing up. And Davis and Jason both addressed this at points in the Sean Ryan interview. This is part of what I learned through this three-year process. We're asking for reform.

Because for name's sake, what the Navy will tell you is this administrative boards are non-punitive in nature. And they'll say that all the time. It's non-punitive. It's administrative. But if you're talking about a process that can give you an other than honorable discharge and demote you in retirement, taking your retirement benefits, that is absolutely punitive.

Talk to any soldier, sailor, or airman who's dealing with an other than honorable discharge. It changes the course of your life. That is a punitive thing, all administrative. And that's part of the problem here, too, as Davis mentioned here.

It's shy of a legal court. But that means it's not bound by the same legal standards for evidentiary collection and proof. And so it's all based upon a board's feelings on whether you did something that's worth this or not.

And so in a sense, what ends up happening, and I've talked to hundreds of people that have gone now through the similar thing as me, what ends up happening is, functionally, due process rights are violated.

Because they can use shoddy investigations. They can use hearsay. They can use opinions. And they add all these things to there, sometimes not based on maliciousness. Sometimes it's just incompetence.

Sometimes it's incompetence with malice. But either way, it gets into this board. And now confirmation bias can set in. And a sailor or soldier or airman is set at a significant disadvantage standing before this board arguing their case, all for things that I think, in the end, disproportionately punish honorable service members.

This is your reward for serving your nation. So we're going to put you through the ringer and call it non-punitive and call you to the table and question your years of active duty service because of what?

Some anonymous allegation out there? It's really unjust. And I think it's created a system that has disincentivized a lot of people from being interested in serving. My case was not an anomaly. This was a symptom of a larger problem within the Department of Defense.

And I think our soldiers, sailors, and airmen are seeing that problem and are starting to vote with their feet. I think these things are absolutely tied to our retention and recruitment challenges. Kind of getting fixed as we saw the news break the other day for 2025 recruiting goals for the Army.

I think people are seeing we're riding the ship. But either way, this entire administrative process needs to be overhauled.

I didn't see that. Recruitment numbers are up then, I'm assuming?

Yeah, for 2025. Already hit their requirement or something? I may be misquoting it, but Secretary Hicks put that out on a social media tweet the other day. And pretty impressive that we're a month and a half into 2025 already.

Well, waiting feels good.

Yeah, well, yeah. So the Army is having to expand basic training and their capacity of basic training for all the recruits coming in. They set a 15-year record. I think it was a month for the month of January, but it's a 15-year record in recruiting.

So, yeah. So just to piggyback on some of what Brad was talking about as far as this administrative process, just to kind of understand it in terms that will frustrate people listening but that makes sense is what has happened when you take away common sense, fundamental notions of justice, when you take away biblical principles, what you have is a military justice system where there are cases that everyone knows there is not enough evidence to support a criminal conviction.

So if it went in front of a judge, there's no way it would even get that far. But there is this avenue, this administrative avenue within the military process where allegations that wouldn't hold up in any other setting can be pushed forward to this BOI, this Board of Inquiry, this administrative separation process.

And you're left with really unequal justice because the quality of the process and what happens to that board is dependent on the three officers that they pick as jurors. That's the best way to understand them for this setting.

So I've done hundreds of these boards across all the branches of the service and inevitably the outcome really is determined by the willingness of those board members to do the right thing and to push back against their leadership because, you know, Brad used the term confirmation bias.

Absolutely. The problem, if the admiral is saying, if the general is saying, hey, we're taking this to a board for you to consider kicking this person out and taking away, you know, everything they've earned through their service, there's this pressure on these board members often to reach that outcome.

Right. And that's the problem. So we go in there into this process and we have to say, no, the Constitution still applies. You know, presumption of innocence is still supposed to apply. The Navy, the Air Force, the Army still has to prove their case.

And that can be a very, very difficult challenge. So, I mean, we've had tremendous success in some of those. I've had tremendous success in those. And there are others where you just sit there and shake your head because the outcome felt predetermined.

So that's, you know, that's why we need reform. And all of the things that are happening in this administration, whether it's in the DOD or just through other parts of the federal government, is this bureaucratic entanglement has gotten so out of control that there really is bureaucratic tyranny.

And it's not just in the military. It's through all of these administrative processes where at best, to the extent you are provided due process, it's due process light. And so all of these administrative rules can be used to destroy your life, to take away your livelihood, your reputation, all of these things, sometimes your property.

And you don't have the full anticipated concept of, you know, what we think of as constitutional protection. So at best in these proceedings, it's due process light, which is a very difficult avenue to navigate.

And you are often at the whims of these bureaucrats. And people forget the military is filled with bureaucratic functionaries at many levels of leadership. And that's where the reform is because if that's the mindset, if people in the military are more concerned about their career and, you know, how they move up in the bureaucracy, that is a very dangerous system to be a part of.

But you can't handle the truth, Davis. That's probably your favorite movie, isn't it?

No, it's not. It's not.

They love that stuff.

So, I mean, obviously, how long were you a JAG for? I know you did 20 years, right? Were you a JAG the whole time?

Right. Yeah. 11 years active duty and then nine guard and reserve.

So you've you've seen the, you know, worst of the worst. And so, you know, talking about reforming all this, I mean, without putting like you on the spot, like, I mean, how much have you seen situations where you're like, this is awful.

Besides Brad, like, obviously, obviously, Brad is vindicated. But I mean, how many times have you seen guys where you're like, they weren't vindicated and they suffered and they got, you know, charged wrongly?

Yeah. So, you know, I started out my career in the Air Force as a prosecutor and I was a prosecutor at two different, you know, two different installations. But but my my career as a defense attorney, I never wanted to be a defense attorney.

I never wanted to be that person. I always thought I would be a prosecutor, wear the white hat. And then I was assigned to the Air Force Academy and they the Air Force really didn't give me a choice. I had to become a defense attorney.

And what I saw there was the beginning of problems seeping into the system that were there. They were already there, but it just was the outpouring of it, which is a really outcome based military justice system and not a truth or justice based system.

And what I mean by that is this whole idea. This is the problem. We use terms like, you know, progressive, woke, Marxist, D .I. What is the problem with all of that? The problem with all of it is we create these systems that are designed to protect people and create protected classes.

And what that does is divorces from the truth. So so what am I saying here? To be very blunt, we're talking about situations where if someone complains that they are a victim of anything, of of being told something that made them sad, of any any kind of a crime in the military system.

The system just had this ideology seep in that we can never blame the victim. And if someone's a victim of something, some type of oppression, whatever it is, we're not going to hold them accountable for their own actions.

So what you had is this I mean, this wild idea, things like if you are in the military and you are in trouble yourself, you've done something wrong that could get you in trouble. But you raise your hand and say, no, I was the victim of a sexual assault or sexual harassment.

Just as an example, you and we now have these safe to report policies that make it so you won't be held accountable for your own actions. So the problem is we've gone from a system where we need to protect the people who are serving our country and ensure they are protected to one where we reward a lack of accountability and people can manipulate and abuse the system.

So the kind of things I see all the time, not like Brad's case, but the kind of things I see all the time are, you know, a spouse cheats on their significant other. They get caught and they use the military system to gain an advantage in divorce and custody proceedings by bringing false allegations that no one will ever question the truth of.

So even if it goes to trial and there's an acquittal, there's there's not a conviction because they were innocent and they were falsely accused. They've used the military system, the charging process to gain an upper hand in, you know, divorce and custody proceedings.

So I can tell you just in the last two years, I've represented five or six Christian men who were falsely accused of horrific things by a spouse who was having an affair. Like that's not that sounds hyperbole.

People don't believe it. That's the kind of thing we see because the military has become so politically correct that we have allowed this to seep in. And then we've divorced this from accountability. And I don't want to put Brad on the spot in saying this, but one of the things I have been seeing a lot more of is a concern that the most effective thing we're doing when we're training leaders in the military over the last four years in particular is not in leadership.

But in risk mitigation, the problem is too many leaders are prioritizing their own career as what they're trying to mitigate the risk of losing. And that's a huge, huge problem. So, you know, I am I'm incredibly excited about some of the things we're seeing and the efforts that change that I see coming forward.

But there's a lot of work to be done. Yeah. Dan, thank you. I appreciate that. So just real, real briefly, I'll ask you, Davis. There's people that are watching that may not actually know Brad's case.

Could you just give us like a quick one or two minute synopsis of what happened? And so people are kind of brought up to speed.

Yeah. So the best way to understand it is just to understand the position that that Brad was in as leading the buds training. So leading the schoolhouse where SEAL training was occurring. And one of the things that was happening was a concern that Captain Geary was aware of, of the use of performance enhancing drugs.

So steroids. So there were some candidates who were willing to engage in steroid use to try to gain an advantage and try to get through the rigors of the program. The problem is when you're doing that and these are illegal substances, you're getting dangerous substances that you have no guarantee what they are.

Right. So, I mean, these are these things coming in from Pakistan. Who knows what they are? Who knows what they're tainted with? An extremely dangerous, foolish thing to do, even if it matters to you to get through this training so much.

So one of the things that happened was Captain Geary was aware of this, trying to put a stop to it, trying to deal with it. Got very bad legal advice from the Navy legal command who told him things like he couldn't search vehicles, even though they knew that's where steroids were being hidden and where things were being kept because that was the only place the candidates could hide them.

So what you have in this situation is a young man who tragically was, all the evidence points to the fact that he was relying on steroids to achieve success, to get through hell week in the training program.

And all of the evidence points, including what was found in his vehicle, points to the fact that his use of that as uncontrolled use of that over time resulted in his death. And the Navy attempted to avoid blaming the victim.

And this is the language that was used by Navy leadership. We're not going to blame the victim. And so what they did is look for a scapegoat. So they tried to blame Brad and the chief medical officer for the death of this seal candidate after hell week when all of the evidence, scientific evidence, medical evidence and otherwise points to the use of performance enhancing drugs as the as the contributing factor to his death.

Yeah. Well, thank you, brother. And again, praise the Lord. We don't worry about that anymore. But so that brings me that'll bring me into the other half of this conversation. And, you know, if you if you guys haven't been listening or following us, you know, we started with Stand With Warriors and 21 fall of 21.

And I mean, just it's been incredible just to watch God work all that, bring it all together, how we did, you know, which is literally just I think that day we had about 30 active seals that are just brothers, Christians that were just trying to be faithful and do the right thing and and, you know, honor their Savior and, you know, also honor the Constitution and the oath that they took.

And so, you know, we we met with them. We're like, yeah, we have we have no choice but to help these guys. And so just to see it go from that, you know, and then and then obviously, you know, with the situation, the Brad and then, you know, Davis and I have talked a lot where we're like, this is this is much bigger than just, you know, the Vax.

This is a much bigger like there's something else going on. And so to see where we're at now, you know, obviously, with Trump getting elected, you know, we have at least four years to maybe get some stuff done.

Praise God. You know, it's like a breath of fresh air. Like I said earlier, like winning feels good. And so I'm just curious what you guys think. I'm going to ask both of you this, but just seeing the corruption you've both seen on the different levels, you know, you both talked about reform.

Like, do you kind of feel like maybe you're I mean, Brad, I'll ask you this first. Do you kind of feel like maybe you're like the tip of the spear, maybe to some degree where it's like, we can take this case, the situation we've now been given an opportunity to fix this, like you said, to reform things.

I wonder if you kind of feel like that or am I just making that up?

I think, you know, I'm trying to think out of it, but I think we're at a very unique time and place. Unlike we've seen, at least in the entire almost 30 years I've been serving in the military where there's a lot of momentum for change and it's change, I think, in the right direction.

It's not like a universal endorsement of everything that's going on necessarily, but at the same time, I'm very encouraged by what I'm seeing. And everyone I talked to at those deck plate levels, at those troop levels, they're just frothing at the mouth for the opportunity to singularly focus on lethality as a military and on back to the Reaganism of peace through strength and being a force for good across the globe.

The 20th and 21st century have seen global peace and prosperity unlike ever before in the history of the world that we know it. And that is largely because America came out of World War II as this dominant force for good, the shining light on a hill.

And I feel like this is a return to that. And that is exciting a lot of people that I talk to, and they're just looking forward to what these four years will bring. As officers, you know, we swear oath to the Constitution.

That's deliberate. It's deliberate that we do not swear an oath as officers to an institution or to a person. We swear our oath to the Constitution and we serve the office of the President of the United States.

Everyone I know is very excited about this Commander in Chief and then his nomination, the confirmation of Secretary Hegseth and where that's going to take the military. And I think there's a lot of goodness to come for America.

And as goes America, so goes the world.

Amen. Amen. Davis, what are your thoughts on that question?

Yeah, so I have to put it into context. And the context is, you know, I joined the Air Force as a JAG, you know, not a trigger puller, but I did it because 9 -11 happened when I was in law school. And I really felt that was, you know, that was the time.

This is what I had. This is the gift that God had given me to bring into the war fight. So, I mean, I joined to deploy. I joined to, you know, protect our nation during that timeframe. And the difficult thing for me, and I know Brad can relate to this, but my entire career was spent post 9 -11.

So understand that last time I was on duty, under orders, wearing a uniform, I was at the Air Force JAG school as a reservist when the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan happened. So understand, I mean, I deployed.