Aug. 21--A top Navy officer said he's open to letting women join the ranks of its elite SEAL teams -- and if the secretary of defense agrees with the admiral's recommendation, some of the first female SEAL candidates will likely start the journey at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Navy officials said.
The Navy has been reviewing its policies and entry standards as part of the military's push to open more combat jobs to women.
Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy's retiring top officer, said entry standards should be gender neutral but made it clear that no decision has been made about opening up the last all-male bastion in the Navy, according to a report in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The services were told they'd need to seek exemptions for positions they believed should remain closed to women.
"We do not intend to ask for any exemptions for any job in the Navy," Cmdr. William Marks, with Navy public affairs, told the News-Sun on Thursday.
That includes the SEAL teams, Marks said, which are currently among the special operations units closed to servicewomen.
While a decision on whether Navy SEALs will accept women hasn't been made, each of the services and U.S. Special Operations Command will study their combat roles and entry standards and provide a recommendation to the secretary of defense on integrating women.
SOCOM, which oversees special operations across the armed services, expects to make its recommendation at the end of this fall, said SOCOM spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matt Allen.
"We are working in concert with all the services. It's a deliberate process, and at the end, the secretary of defense makes the final decision," Allen said, adding that decision is expected Jan. 1, 2016.
If the secretary of defense is onboard, there's no timeline for when the first women could begin SEAL training, Marks said. But most enlisted SEAL aspirants take the first step at Naval Station Great Lakes' Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School, according to Navy officials.
The SEALs are highly selective. Out of the roughly 1,000 men who begin SEAL training each year, only about 200 to 250 successfully graduate, according to the Naval Special Warfare website.
The two-month training period at Naval Station Great Lakes aims to get SEAL candidates physically ready for more specialized training at the Naval Special Warfare Center in California, which takes about a year.
Just to make it to the SEAL training program, Great Lakes' Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School candidates must pass a fitness test with minimum standards that would be grueling for anyone -- male or female. Each must swim 1,000 yards with fins in 20 minutes; complete 70 pushups, 10 pullups and 60 curl-ups in two minutes each; and run 4 miles in 31 minutes, according to the Naval Special Warfare website.
lzumbach@tribpub.com
