Admiral over SEALS backs women’s entry into warfare units

WASHINGTON — The commander of the Navy’s special warfare units is recommending that the SEALs and combat crew jobs be opened to women, but he warns that women will have greater risk of injury and says the service may be pressured to adjust or lower standards for the jobs.

In a five-page memo, Rear Adm. Brian Losey said that “there are no insurmountable obstacles” to opening the commando jobs to women, but he warned that there are “foreseeable impacts” to integrating them into ground combat units. Losey is the head of the Navy’s Special Warfare Command, which includes the SEAL teams and special warfare combatant craft crewmen.

Losey’s memo to U.S. Special Operations Command was obtained by The Associated Press. It comes as the U.S. military services are in the final weeks of discussion over whether to ban women from any front-line combat jobs. The Army, Navy and Air Force are expected to open all positions to women, but Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, who just left his post as commandant of the Marine Corps, has recommended that certain Marine infantry and ground combat jobs remain closed to women.

Dunford became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday.

While Losey outlined many of the same concerns as the Marine Corps about how women would fare in some of the military’s most demanding jobs, he came to a different conclusion.

Allowing all qualified candidates to “test themselves” against the difficult physical, mental and other standards required to become a special warfare officer “is ultimately the right thing to do and is clearly consistent with the struggle over centuries to fully represent our nation’s values of fairness and equal opportunity,” his memo opens.

But Losey stated upfront that putting women in the commando jobs is not expected to increase the units’ ability to fight in combat. In fact, he said, the effort to integrate the units and change the culture “will channel focus and energy away from core combat readiness and effectiveness efforts.”

He said that while there may be “external” pressure to adjust the standards so that women can successfully pass, it’s not likely that would succeed. The standards, he said, have been honed over the past 50 years, and 70 percent of men fail.

“With the recent female graduates from the Ranger course, there may be an expectation that there will soon be female graduates from BUD/S,” he said, referring to the SEALs course. “We will welcome any candidate who meets standards.”

Losey recommended that Special Warfare Command should manage expectations, and to the extent possible remove gender identity from the application process so that only the most qualified will be selected.

He downplayed the risk of women disrupting social cohesion, saying that while members of the special warfare units may not want women serving alongside them, “acceptance is expected to increase over time.”