2 women advanced further in Navy SEAL tryouts than any in history

Washington —  Two women attempting to become Navy SEALs advanced further through the military’s grueling training pipeline than any women before them, making history despite ultimately failing to complete the demanding course at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California. 

An enlisted sailor and a naval officer entered Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, or BUD/S, training several weeks ago, multiple sources told CBS News. Both had made it to the third week of training, with Hell Week, the infamous 5 1/2-day endurance test starting in the fourth week. CBS News has learned the officer was rolled back to the next class and ultimately requested to be dropped from the course before Hell Week and the enlisted sailor was medically pulled from Hell Week.  

While the two women did not pass the SEAL course, they made it further than any other woman who has tried since special operations opened its doors to women in 2016.  

CBS News is withholding the names of the candidates for security and privacy reasons. 

Gaining access to Hell Week is a feat of its own because nearly half of all candidates, about 45%, are either removed or rolled back to the next class during training in the first few weeks prior to Hell Week, according to data compiled by the Navy between 1998 and 2023 and released through the Freedom of Information Act. Hell Week is widely considered one of the most physically and mentally demanding portions of the initial training, which lasts roughly six months. 

Hell Week is designed to test the physical and mental limits of candidates. After starting in the middle of the night, candidates get about four hours of sleep over the next five days and complete tasks like carrying logs, launching boats into crashing waves, lying in cold ocean water and running around 200 miles. 

A spokesperson for Naval Special Warfare Command said: “To protect the integrity of NSW Center courses and the privacy of its candidates, we don’t discuss the details of any individual selection or non-selection status or where they are in the training pipeline.”

Long before the Pentagon formally opened all combat positions to women in 2016, women have served alongside U.S. special operation forces. As far back as World War II, women helped gather intelligence or coordinate supply drops and combat raids for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA and U.S. Special Operations Command.  

In 1988, the Defense Department adopted the “Risk Rule” policy that restricted women from assignments based on their exposure to combat-related dangers, but during the Persian Gulf War, some women did experience combat though they had officially been assigned to  “non-combat” roles.

Their service in the Gulf War led Congress to repeal the combat aviation exclusion in December 1991, which allowed women to serve in combat aviation roles. In 1994, Defense Secretary Les Aspin rescinded the risk rule policy but kept in place the exclusion that barred women from serving in direct ground combat units below the brigade level.  

Almost two decades later, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rescinded the 1994 policy, removing gender-based combat assignment restrictions. By 2016, women were allowed to try out to become Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Green Berets. 

Over the last decade, thousands of women have joined infantry, armor and artillery units, but relatively few have attempted to qualify for elite special operations units, with only a handful having successfully completed the rigorous selection and training programs over the past decade. 

The demands of the Navy SEAL training pipeline weeded out about 68% of candidates at various stages of training, according to Navy data between 1998 and 2023. The highest attrition occurred during the program’s seven-week first phase — which includes Hell Week — where 66% of candidates were removed or rolled into another class. 

Nearly half of each incoming class — about 45% — do not make it through the three weeks preceding Hell Week — some 29% voluntarily withdraw from the course. Despite Hell Week’s reputation as one of the military’s most punishing endurance tests, more candidates drop out during the preceding weeks than during Hell Week.

Around 21% left during Hell Week either because they asked to leave or had medical or performance issues. The figures suggest that nearly four out of five candidates who began Hell Week were able to finish it. 

Attrition declined sharply during the later training stages, with 5% during the second phase, which emphasizes combat diving, and 3% during the third phase, which focuses on land warfare. Under 1% leave during the rigorous six-month SEAL Qualification Training course, which is the final leg of the pipeline before they are assigned to a SEAL team. 

In 2021, a sailor became the first woman to graduate from the Naval Special Warfare training pipeline to become a Special Warfare Combat Crewman, according to previous reporting by CBS News. The Navy said that historically only about 35% of candidates attempting to join their ranks make it to graduation. 

The Navy’s Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen, known as SWCCs, are elite maritime operators training to operate high-speed, heavily armed boats that transport Navy SEALs into and out of hostile territory, along with other maritime missions. While they undergo separate selection and training courses, SWCCs are part of Naval Special Warfare Command. 

Outside of naval special warfare, women have successfully navigated other rigorous special operation training pipelines. 

Seventeen women have attempted to become Marine Raiders under Marine Forces Special Operations Command but none had passed as of 2024, according to the Military Times, which also reported that 54 women in the Air Force had entered training to join special operation jobs. Only a handful have completed the training.  

In 2020, a National Guard soldier became the second woman to finish the Army’s Special Forces Qualification Course and move on to a Green Beret team — the first was Capt. Kathleen Wilder in 1980, who retired as a lieutenant colonel, according to the Army Times. Less than 10 women have earned the Green Beret, according to a 2023 report from Military.com 

Fewer than a dozen women have joined the historic 75th Ranger Regiment – an elite special operations Army unit that specializes in high-risk raids, airfield seizures and large-scale combat operations. Everyone who serves in the regiment has to pass the selection process and the grueling tests during Ranger School no matter the position. 

One of those women is former Capt. Hailey Gibbons, a West Point graduate who completed Ranger School in 2021. She served as a logistician in the 75th Ranger Regiment until she left the military in 2023. 

“If you’re a logistician, if you’re comms guide, military intelligence, everyone is a Ranger in that formation,” Gibbons told CBS News in an interview. “And so I was like, I want to be a part of the team. I don’t just want to assist the team.”

Women have faced resistance from the military community in serving in combat roles and trying out for special operations, and that’s still the case. As the two women were making their way through the initial weeks of BUD/S, they were criticized on social media by some former SEALs and military focused accounts.   

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly questioned whether women should serve in ground combat and special operations roles, arguing that their inclusion could undermine military effectiveness and physical standards. 

Shortly before he was nominated for the position, the former Fox News host and National Guard veteran said “we should not have women in combat roles” in a podcast interview with Shawn Ryan, who is a former Navy SEAL. In his confirmation hearing, Hegseth said women would have access to ground combat roles, “given standards remain high.” 

He offered no example of how standards had been lowered but said he’s been told by service members that standards have changed “in ways direct, indirect, overt, and subtle.”

Earlier this year, the Pentagon commissioned a study to review the effectiveness of women in ground combat roles. In a statement given to CBS News in January, Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said the study was “to ensure standards are met and the United States maintains the most lethal military.” 

Gibbons told CBS News the standards have not changed for special operations despite Hegseth’s indirect claims. 

“When he’s saying that the standards have changed and that people have lowered standards to allow women into their formations, it’s absolutely a lie because no brigade commander would sign off on that — because then they would be looked at as less than and as someone who they can’t trust,” Gibbons said.