Two women candidates trying out for the Navy SEALs pushed further into the grueling BUD/S training pipeline than any woman before them this year. The enlisted sailor reached Hell Week, while the naval officer requested to leave before it; neither finished the training.
According to CBS News, the officer was rolled back to the next class and eventually requested to be dropped from the course before Hell Week began, while the enlisted sailor was medically pulled from Hell Week itself. CBS News reported that both candidates had entered Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training several weeks before publication, citing multiple unnamed sources. The outlet said it is withholding the candidates' names for security and privacy reasons, and a Naval Special Warfare Command spokesperson said the command does not discuss individual candidates' selection or non-selection status or where they are in the training pipeline.
Hell Week is the brutal test that separates serious contenders from everyone else in SEAL training. It begins in the fourth week of BUD/S and lasts five and a half days, during which candidates get only about four hours of sleep total, according to the same CBS News report. The challenge has long served as the pipeline's most notorious filter, and reaching its doorstep — as the enlisted sailor did — had never happened for a female candidate before.
A Pipeline Built to Weed People Out
The numbers behind BUD/S explain why getting even this far is rare. Navy data spanning 1998 to 2023, cited by CBS News, found that about 45% of candidates are removed or rolled back to another class in the weeks before Hell Week even starts, and that roughly 68% of all candidates are eliminated at some point across the full training pipeline. Of those who do reach Hell Week, around 21% wash out during it — meaning nearly four out of five who start the 5.5-day ordeal actually finish it.
Separately, the BBC has described the 24-week BUD/S course as carrying an attrition rate of between 70% and 85% per class, with trainees enduring the same five-and-a-half-day Hell Week on fewer than four hours of sleep. The two outlets' figures reflect different measures or time periods, and the available reporting does not reconcile the gap between them.
Few Women Have Attempted the Path at All
Only a handful of women have even entered the Navy SEAL training pipeline since the Pentagon opened special operations jobs to women in 2016. According to Military Times, just four women had entered SEAL training by the time its data was compiled, and between 2022 and 2023 only one woman entered SEAL training while three attempted combatant craft crewman training. The outlet also reported that the share of women across special operations forces overall rose from 7.9% in 2016 to 12% in 2023.
Other special operations pipelines tell a similar story of extremely small numbers. Military Times reported that 17 women have attempted Marine Raider training, with none going on to secure a spot on a SEAL or Raider team, while nine women have entered the Navy's small-boats pipeline and two have graduated onto teams. Three female soldiers have graduated from the Army's Special Forces Qualification Course and received assignments in Special Forces groups, per the same outlet's reporting.
In 2021, a sailor became the first woman to graduate from the Naval Special Warfare training pipeline as a Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman, CBS News noted, a milestone that predates this year's BUD/S attempts. A Navy press release at the time said candidates of Crewman Qualification Training Class 115 completed Naval Special Warfare's assessment and selection pipeline and graduated as Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen, who operate the high-speed, heavily armed boats that ferry SEALs into and out of hostile territory.
The Policy Fight Playing Out in the Background
This year's attempts come amid renewed debate inside the Pentagon over women's roles in combat and special operations, a discussion that predates either candidate's run at BUD/S. The reporting notes that women's eligibility for ground combat and special operations jobs has shifted repeatedly since the 1980s, moving from the Defense Department's 1988 risk-rule restrictions through the 2016 decision that first allowed women to try out for SEAL, Army Ranger, and Green Beret training.
That history has not settled the argument. The dossier reporting indicates that some former SEALs and military-focused social media accounts have criticized the women candidates, while broader policy questions about standards remain contested in public commentary tied to this story.
