Movies to real life: Top SEAL says GI Jane may be coming soon

The Navy’s top SEAL says he fully supports the Pentagon’s decision to integrate women into special operations, adding that his command will assess during the “next couple of years how we’re going to do that.”

“It’s time to do this,” Navy Adm. William McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said Tuesday.

However, Adm. McRaven expressed doubt over whether any standards for becoming a special operator would change.

“The one thing we want to make sure we maintain is our standards,” he said at an annual defense industry conference for special operators. “We haven’t had ‘gender standards.’ … We had no female population to have to worry about gender. We had an all male population … so that was the standard.”

“So what we don’t want to do is say, ‘Hey, if you’re going to become a SEAL, we’re going to have a female standard and a male standard’ — we’ve always had [one] standard,” the admiral said.

Nonetheless, Adm. McRaven said he expects female service members will apply for special operations training, adding “they’ll do a phenomenal job.”

“So we’re looking forward to figuring ways to integrate them into the service … and they will continue to perform as they’ve been performing for us for a very long time,” he said.

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