Navy SEALs now accepting women

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Jerry Holt

Christopher Krauss waves an American flag during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders at the American Indian Center on Sunday, May 31, 2015, in Minneapolis. (Jerry Holt/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS)

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said “Why shouldn’t anybody who can meet the (standards) be accepted? And the answer is, there is no reason.”

Just recently, two women became the first female Army Rangers.

Greenert said, “‘Hey, look. Here are the standards. Anybody who can meet them — they’re gender non-specific — can become a SEAL.’”

According to Greenert, as long as someone can go through the harsh training to meet the standards, they can become a Navy SEAL.

Although the SEALs will eventually allow acceptance into the Elite Force, the Defense News has not released the official date women will be allowed to compete for a spot.

Marine corps veteran and board member of the non-partisan Truman Project Nathan Fletcher said, “It’s a great precedent; all of the special operations [in the] community will be hard-pressed not to follow it.”

At the beginning of Army Ranger School there were 381 men and 19 women. These students went through difficult training with little food, and sleep while they learned how to live in the woods, swamps, and mountains.

In addition to the severe circumstances which they lived through, the people left took physical tests consisting of 49 push-ups, 59 sit-ups, a five-mile run in forty minutes, six chin-ups, a swim test, a land navigation test, a twelve-mile foot march in three hours, many obstacle courses, four days of military mountaineering, three parachute jumps, four air assaults on helicopters, and 27 days of mock combat patrols.

By the end of the 62 days, there were only 94 men and two women who accomplished the cycle.