Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the commander at the center of the controversial Sept. 2 attacks on a suspected drug trafficking ship in the Caribbean Sea, has served for decades as a Navy SEAL officer while rising through the ranks to lead all U.S. special operators worldwide.
Bradley will brief lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday in a bipartisan investigation into the incident, in which two survivors of a first attack were later seen boarding the boat again, a source familiar with the incident told ABC News.
The source said the two survivors were later killed in a second attack because they were considered “still in the fight” because they were in communication with other nearby ships and were collecting some of the drug cargo the ship was carrying.
The White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said it was Bradley’s call that ordered the second strike.
The initial attack was overseen by Hegseth himself, who told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he watched the first attack unfold before leaving for the meetings. He said he saw no survivors or any further attacks.
“Admiral Bradley made the right decision to sink the ship and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said.
“He sank the ship, he sank the ship and he eliminated the threat. And it was the right decision. We stand behind him,” he said.
U.S. Navy Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, incoming commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, delivers a speech during the USSOCOM change of command ceremony in Tampa, Florida, Oct. 3, 2025.
Airman 1st Class Monique Stober via Reuters
At the time of the attack, Bradley was the three-star admiral commanding the Joint Special Operations Command that oversees the most sensitive special operations missions carried out by units such as SEAL Team Six and Delta Force.
Bradley is a 1991 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he studied physics and was a college gymnast, according to his Navy biography, and has commanded at all levels of U.S. special operations.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks alongside President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Dec. 2, 2025.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
He was one of the first to deploy to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, his biography says.
Originally from Eldorado, Texas, Bradley earned a Master’s degree in Physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he received a provisional patent for his research in 2006, according to his biography.
Those who served with him characterized him as one of the best soldiers.
Retired Navy Cdr. Eric Oelerich, a former SEAL and current ABC News contributor, said Bradley, who has been his mentor for decades, is an adaptable leader and “one of the smartest officers” in the U.S. military.
“Bradley is an example of the best there is in the American military,” said Oelerich, who commanded special operators as a Navy officer. “And he is a man extremely rooted in morality.”
Retired brigand. Gen. Shawn Harris, who worked with Bradley and is now a Democratic congressional candidate in Georgia, told ABC News that Adm. is “an exceptional leader.”
Accustomed to operating in the shadows as a senior special operations leader, Bradley He made a rare public appearance in July at a Senate confirmation hearing. Nominated to serve as a four-star commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, he was confirmed and assumed the rank and command role in October.
At the time of the September attack, Bradley headed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which has operational authority over the military’s elite special warfare units.
At his confirmation hearing to lead Special Operations Command, JSOC’s parent organization, Bradley said officers under his command would focus on preventing harm to civilians and respecting the laws of war.
“Just to resonate, it is not only an obligation to comply with the law of armed conflict to protect civilians, but it is critical to our success and competence to represent our values,” Bradley told Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “I believe that every uniformed member, every civilian and every contractor who is employed or oversees the use of deadly force has a critical obligation to be able to do so, and I am committed to maintaining that as a focus for our command, if confirmed.”
Warren responded: “That’s a strong answer and I appreciate it.”
The government has maintained that the 11 people who died in the September 2 incident – as well as the more than 80 who died in attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean – were not civilians but rather terrorist fighters that the United States was authorized to kill for reasons of self-defense.
Some legal experts, including a group of former military lawyersThey have said they believe the people who died in the subsequent attacks were no longer in the fighting and therefore were not legal military targets.
