https://www.navytimes.com/news/your...ied-tuesday-following-training-accident/

SEAL Team 8 commander died Tuesday following training accident
By Geoff Ziezulewicz
Dec 8, 12:25 PM







Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois, the commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, died Tuesday following injuries sustained in a training accident last week. (Navy)
The Navy SEAL who died Tuesday after being injured in a fast-rope training event last week has been identified as the commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois.

Naval Special Warfare Command has released few other details so far on what happened, but Bourgeois, 43, was injured during the training evolution Saturday in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

He was taken to Norfolk Sentara General Hospital following the accident and died there.

“An incident like this weighs heavily on us all,” Capt. Donald Wetherbee, commodore for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, said in a statement. “Brian was as tough as they come, an outstanding leader and a committed father, husband and friend. This is a great loss to everyone who knew him. He will be greatly missed.”

Wetherbee said that the command is providing support to Bourgeois’s family and fellow unit members.


SEAL Team 8′s executive officer has temporarily assumed command of the Virginia-based unit, according to the command, which did not identify the officer, citing operational security.

While the details of the accident remain under investigation, the command said the findings will be made available “at the appropriate time.”

Brian’s wife and family were with him when he passed, said Rear Adm. H.W. Howard, the commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Command, in a message to the community.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Bourgeois family — and we will ensure our community remains in support of and in relationship with Brian’s family and his five children, for life,” he wrote.

“Brian was one of our very best leaders, who possessed all the attributes to make our force effective,” Howard said in an official statement. “We will miss his charismatic leadership and faithful stewardship of our standard. His legacy carries on in teammates he served with, led and mentored.”

Bourgeois attended the U.S. Naval Academy, was commissioned in May 2001 and went on to serve in the naval special warfare community for more than two decades.

His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star with Combat “V” device and the combat action ribbon.

Navy records show he made commander in 2017 and joined SEAL Team 8 in November 2020.

About Geoff Ziezulewicz
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at [email protected].

Jeeze...he was pretty old eh?

RIP Warrior!

That's a dedication few will know

Damn shame condolences for the family and RIP Cmdr.

One of the good guys. Dammit, man. RIP Cmdr.

Very sad.

Prayers for all the good guys, and all those near to them.

RIP Booge!

RIP Warrior

Not everyone can be a youthful half Apache/half Inuit like you riding your war pony while living the life as a nomad in Montana.

RIP

RIP

RIP

Dad was my age when he went to Jump School. He said that was too old.


I cant imagine Seal training.

Sad indeed. May God comfort his survivors.

RIP Sir
Prayers for the family

Not trying to swing my d ick here but I served with Tony. A Seal. My friend.
Rip my friends.

Very sad news.

Prayers to his family.

RIP Sir

Ron

Rest in Peace, Sir! You have more than earned your respite!

Very sad Godspeed

Prayers for the wife and family
RIP

RIP, Commander.......

Tom Brady looks sharp in a military uniform too.

There aren't any guarantees of life or limb just because you are doing the right thing.

RIP Commander!

I see the Commander had a Wife and 5 kids, very sad. RIP.

Terrible for that family to bear... RIP Cmdr..

RIP.

Very sad indeed.

Really puts the damper on the holidays for wife and the children.

Ummm, no

But at the same time, thank God he had kids!

Prayers for his family, friends, and colleagues.

As soon as I saw that he was the commanding officer of the whole team, I wondered if he had been getting as many training reps the past couple/few years as those under his command (i.e., those more likely going into combat next week/month than the team commander) had. Not that he wasn't qualified to do his job but with something requiring a high level of skill being even very slightly less proficient at something inherently dangerous can have bad results.

Reaction time, which is critical when something goes awry, also diminishes with age, which is why few MLB players play into their 40's, even as designated hitters. I'm sure pilots, especially carrier-based pilots, have to pay special attention to get in the flight time/traps to remain proficient after they enter command levels.

Tragic incident, and I'm sure the Navy will review things closely for contributing factors.

So fast roping is a common thing for an O5?

Sorry for your loss.

Rest in Peace.

Fast rope training. Two minute video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs2bcw-i00U

A 43 year old O-5 leading a SEAL team. That my friends is a badass. God rest your soul Brian. May your family find peace, comfort and healing. Thank you and your family for your sacrifice.

Fair winds and following seas, commander.

As commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, he had several 16-man platoons, probably more than 100 SEALs, reporting to him. He had advanced out of patrol missions years ago, but he was undoubtedly still an impressive warrior.

Rest in peace, soldier.

If he is the Commanding Officer of the Team (he was) . Of course it is.

That looks dangerous AF. Not as much the actual descent, but standing in an open door setting up for it.

Friend who served with him said he was one of the good guys. He was just too old to be doing that job. Friend did that job and is now 100% disabled thinks the navy should kick all the seals out of the teams at about age 30ish. You don’t realize that you are slowing down and you don’t heal as well. Forty year olds have no business fast roping or doing five or six training jumps in an afternoon.

That video is the super tame beginners version. What they really do is get wrapped up on the rope hanging out both sides of the helicopter and start down while the helo is coming in. You’re swinging and often pulling a couple G’s as you slide down the rope with a full load out !

So kick them out at "30ish" (whatever the fugg that means), meaning a major combatant component of the USN will be run by at best by 0-4s? That and his age had nothing to do why he died.

I’m talking about kicking them out of the actual fighting and training to fight. Not out of leadership roles. 43 year old CO has no business out fast roping with the young guns. There is no reason for him to be practicing for a role he should never be called upon to do. Junior officers should be leading teams in the field and senior officers directing teams from the rear. By the time you’re in your mid thirties you are getting too old to be doing the job. Cutoff needs to be 32-34 rang. That’s just the opinion of my friend and some of his fellow retired special operations people. My friend was EOD assigned to seal teams for 10 years.

I have 0 qualifications to establish any credibility, but experience is
more valuable than training.

Training, is just an attempt to establish synthetic experience.


Given the actual deployment time, seeing things that establish
action experience, a guy leaving at 30 has what, 6 or 8 years as
a SEAL. How much action experience?

A guy at 40 will be at 16 or 18 years.
That's huge. And is going to cover a much wider knowledge base.
More things, more ways, more environments.

If your oldest guy was 30.
That's gonna make your pool pretty shallow.

I don’t know what the answers are but the job gets really hard for guys much over 30. In the field they’re all subject to the same physical abuse. Your mind is better than ever but your body isn’t. I’m just passing along the discussion my friend is having with other special operations guys. They all say they couldn’t see it while they were doing the job but now retired and looking back they see it. They’re all getting spinal fusions , knees and hips replaced in their late thirties and forties. My friend is waiting in agony for six neck fusions and three lower back fusions. VA is criminal in their neglect. After that he’s needs a hip replacement. He’s late thirties. Everyone he served with has some level of disability and one team he served with more than half have committed suicide after getting out. You take pain pills to keep going and get hooked on them. After the service they have no or broken families , constant pain , and drug addiction.

We'll agree to disagree

The SEAL community is very unforgiving. CO's are still expected to keep their qualifications up to date, train and deploy with his platoons or detachments.They are still in an "operational" billet and therefore still fully qualified Special Operators. There is a lot of extra pay that goes with the job, Jump pay, dive pay etc... if you want the pay, you stay current. So yes, he was operating in his wheelhouse by training with his troops.

Fast roping has been the cause for many a Frogman to go find another job. The name of the game is to unass that platform and get the hell out the way of the next guy coming down unless you want to carry him into a shooting match I have seen injuries from broken legs, blown out knees, broken ankles and broken backs from fast roping incidents. Most of the training is roping onto the steel deck of a Navy ship which doesn't offer much resiliency when you go "thud".

As for his age, pretty normal for a CO in the Teams. There are many older guys still operating. As long anyone can maintain their quals, they will be operational. Cycling these kind of people out after 30 is ridiculous. Their experience and leadership make them an invaluable asset to the community. There is no Navy Seal book, every training evolution is fluid and constantly changing. Tactics are constantly in flux. Tactics must adapt to stay ahead of the enemy. If you tried to write a book, it would have to change before you finished it.

Lastly, don't compare the age of 43 to anyone you know or met. It doesn't compute. The guys today are very unique as in their body is their temple. They are very selective about what they put in their body (aside from alcohol) and how they treat their body. Last I checked, there are 43 of them refusing the vaccine because they would rather not risk Myocarditis.

Sorrow, prayers, and condolences for the family.

RIP, Warrior. Thanks for your service - you gave it all.

Call me crazy but when I find someone's experience and leadership invaluable, I don't have them jump out of my helicopter.

That's why I mentioned MLB players in an earlier post. All a DH has to do is hit a baseball and run a short distance, but even then only a tiny fraction of MLB players play into their 40s, and that points to diminished reaction times. Even great, highly trained athletes can't completely defy the effects of aging.

I understand the ethos of the Team commanding officer being a fully qualified, combat-ready SEAL, but as a result of this incident the Navy is going to take a close look at the risks they're willing for their senior officers to take. Maintaining diver and parachute quals is one thing, and something I would expect a 40-something-year-old officer to be able to do without undue risk, but some of the other training activities are another matter entirely. By the time an O-5 is commanding one of the Navy's eight SEAL teams, he's demonstrated his skills in combat - he doesn't have to take the same risks in training that those headed into combat do. In what scenario is an O-5 going to fast-rope to get somewhere?

Any kind of realistic training is going to have some danger involved. You can mitigate the risk, but you can never remove it completely. Like KSMITH I've seen a ton of different injuries from training and heard of a bunch more. It sucks but it's going to continue to happen.

I broke a couple of vertebrae on a jump, a former team sergeant had pins in his ankle from a fast roping accident, a teammate busted the hell out of his ankle during ski training, a captain got bounced off the side of the aircraft when his static line got hung up and broke his arm, another guy lost an eye during force on force with sim rounds and those are just a few I can remember.

Not always 100% safe to stay on board either.

http://arlingtoncemetery.net/jtkeneally.htm

God bless those willing to face the dangers so others don't have to.
I look back daily at what little I did, and survived, and feel the deep loss of guys I knew who did not.

Ok, you are Crazy and have no idea what you are speaking on or about. Brian was a stud and doing exactly what he wanted to be doing and what he was supposed to be doing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Training kills people from time to time. We drown, burn in, get shot, get blown up, rollovers, crash in various platforms and some even trip while running with scissors. Some risks just cannot be mitigated while conducting actual training.

As far as him being a leader and forbidden from operating....A Commanding Officer is a leader, you lead from the front, you lead by example. Maybe they do it different where you hangout.

A woman at work had a brother who was a Navy SEAL Officer, he was in 11 years before he was medicaled out. Both shoulders needed replaced, I believe from a night jump where he landed on rocks or rip rap!