Talk:Hugh W. Howard

NYT : Leaders Let Problems Mount at Brutal SEAL Course, Navy Finds
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/25/us/navy-report-seal-course-kyle-mullen.html

After a new leadership team took over the course in 2021, graduation rates dropped steeply. When the commander of Navy Special Warfare at the time, Rear Adm. Hugh W. Howard, was warned about the drop, he told subordinates that it was fine if no one graduated and that it was more important that the course remain tough. According to the report, the admiral added, “Zero is an okay number; hold the standard.”

Instructors, who often had little experience or training for the role, began to view their jobs not as teachers building new SEALs, but as enforcers “hunting the back of the pack” to “weed out” the weak, the report said. A gradual elevation of harsh tactics that the report called “intensity creep” allowed instructors to push the demands of the course “to the far end of the acceptable spectrum,” leaving students exhausted, sick and injured. The course had long employed civilian veterans of the SEAL teams to be mentors, as a way to temper the young instructors. But under the new leadership (HOWARD), these experienced veterans were marginalized. Soon, fewer than 10 percent of students in some classes were making it through the course. J0eSmith666 (talk) 21:14, 3 June 2023 (UTC)