Washington — Two women attempting to become Navy SEALs progressed further than any women before them through the Army’s grueling training process, making history even though they ultimately failed to complete the demanding course at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California.
An enlisted sailor and a naval officer underwent basic underwater demolition/SEAL, or BUD/S, training several weeks ago, multiple sources told CBS News. Both had reached the third week of training, with Hell Week, the famous 5 and a half day endurance test beginning in the fourth week. CBS News has learned that the officer was moved to the next class and ultimately requested to be removed from the course before Hell Week and that the enlisted Marine was medically removed from Hell Week.
Although both 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 does not release candidate names for security and privacy reasons.
Making it to Hell Week is a feat in itself, as nearly half of all applicants, about 45 percent, are either discharged or bumped to the next class during their training in the first few weeks leading up to Hell Week, according to data compiled by the Navy between 1998 and 2023 and released under the Freedom of Information Act. Hell Week is widely considered one of the most physically and mentally demanding parts of initial training, which lasts approximately six months.
Hell Week is designed to test the physical and mental limits of candidates. After starting in the middle of the night, contestants sleep about four hours over the next five days and complete tasks such as carrying logs, launching boats into crashing waves, lying in cold ocean water and running about 200 miles.
A Naval Special Warfare Command spokesperson said: “To protect the integrity of the NSW Center’s courses and the confidentiality of its candidates, we do not discuss the details of any individual selection or non-selection status or their position in the training pipeline. »
Long before the Pentagon officially opened all combat positions to women in 2016, women served alongside U.S. special operations forces. As early 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 United States Special Operations Command.
In 1988, the Department of Defense adopted the “risk rules” policy that limited women’s access to missions based on their exposure to combat-related dangers, but during the Persian Gulf War, some women experienced combat even though they had been officially assigned to “non-combatant” 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 positions. In 1994, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin repealed the risk rules policy, but maintained the exclusion that prohibited women from serving in direct ground combat units below the brigade level.
Nearly two decades later, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rescinded the 1994 policy, removing gender-based restrictions on combat missions. In 2016, women were allowed to try out to become Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Green Berets.
Over the past 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 successfully completing the rigorous selection and training programs over the past decade.
Navy SEAL training pipeline requirements eliminated approximately 68% of candidates at various stages of training, according to Navy data between 1998 and 2023. The highest attrition occurred during the first seven-week phase of the program – which includes Hell Week – where 66% of candidates were removed or transferred to another class.
Nearly half of each incoming class – about 45% – fail to make it through the three weeks leading up to Hell Week – about 29% voluntarily withdraw from the course. Despite Hell Week’s reputation as one of the most punishing tests of military endurance, more candidates drop out in previous weeks than during Hell Week.
About 21% of them left during Hell Week, either because they asked to leave or had medical or performance issues. The figures suggest that almost four out of five candidates who started Hell Week were able to complete it.
Attrition declined sharply during the later stages of training, with 5% during the second phase, which emphasized combat diving, and 3% during the third phase, which focused on ground warfare. Less than 1 percent of them leave during the rigorous six-month SEAL Qualification Training course, which is the final step in the pipeline before being assigned to a SEAL team.
In 2021, a sailor became the first wife to graduate from the Naval Special Warfare training program to become a Special Warfare combat aircrewman, according to a previous CBS News report. The Navy said that historically, only about 35 percent of applicants attempting to join their ranks succeed in graduating.
Navy Special Combat Ship crewmembers, known as SWCCs, are elite maritime operators trained to pilot high-speed, heavily armed boats that transport Navy SEALs in and out of hostile territories, as well as other maritime missions. Although 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 operations training pathways.
Seventeen women attempted to become Marine Raiders under the Marine Forces Special Operations Command, but none were successful in 2024, according to the Military Times, which also reported that 54 Air Force women had trained to join special operations jobs. Only a handful of them completed the training.
In 2020, a National Guard soldier became the second woman to complete the Army’s Special Forces Qualification Course and join a Green Beret team — the first was Capt. Kathleen Wilder in 1980, who retired as a lieutenant colonel, according to the Army Times. Fewer than 10 women 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 Army special operations unit specializing in high-risk raids, airfield seizures and large-scale combat operations. Everyone who serves in the regiment must pass the grueling Ranger School selection process and tests, regardless of position.
One of those women is former Captain 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 Army in 2023.
“If you’re a logistician, if you’re a communications guide, military intelligence, everyone is a Ranger in this training,” Gibbons told CBS News in an interview. “And so I was like, I want to be part of the team. I don’t just want to help the team.”
Provided by Hailey Gibbons 
Women faced resistance from the military community when they served in combat roles and participated in special operations, and that still is the case. As both women navigated the first 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 harm military effectiveness and physical standards.
Shortly before being appointed to the position, the former Fox News host and National Guard veteran said that “we shouldn’t have women in combat roles” in a podcast interview with Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL. During her confirmation hearing, Hegseth said women would have access to ground combat roles, “given that the standards remain high.”
He gave no examples of how standards had been lowered, but said he had been told by military personnel that standards had changed “directly, indirectly, overtly and subtly.”
Earlier this year, the Pentagon commissioned a study to examine 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 intended to “ensure that standards are met and that the United States maintains the deadliest military.”
Gibbons told CBS News that standards have not changed for special operations despite Hegseth’s indirect assertions.
“When he says the standards have changed and people have lowered the standards to allow women into their formations, that’s absolutely a lie because no brigade commander would approve of that – because then they would be seen as inferior and as someone they can’t trust,” Gibbons said.
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