Two women reach reported SEAL training milestone, but not qualification

What counts as a breakthrough in Navy SEAL selection when neither candidate finishes the course?

For two women training at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California, the answer is progress through an early, punishing stage—not qualification. Both reached the third week of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, known as BUD/S, according to CBS News. Its reporters, James LaPorta and Eleanor Watson, described that as farther than any woman had advanced since the course opened to women in 2016. One subsequently entered Hell Week. Neither completed BUD/S.⁠¹

That is a meaningful reported milestone, but the historical claim has a limit: it has not been independently established through public, candidate-by-candidate Navy records. Naval Special Warfare Command has declined to discuss the women’s individual progress. The account therefore rests on CBS’s reporting, citing multiple sources, rather than an official announcement of a record.⁠¹

The report became public on November 4, 2026. That dates the disclosure, not the achievement or either departure. The women had entered training several weeks earlier; exact dates for their progression and exits have not been disclosed. CBS is withholding their names for security and privacy.⁠¹

The distinction between the women’s experiences matters as much as their shared progress. The naval officer was first “rolled back” to the next class—a reassignment that allows a candidate to continue with a later group. She subsequently asked to leave before Hell Week. The enlisted sailor entered Hell Week and was medically removed during it.⁠¹

Those are not interchangeable outcomes. The officer’s rollback was not itself her voluntary departure; that decision came afterward. The enlisted sailor’s removal was medical, not a reported decision to quit. No diagnosis, reason for the officer’s rollback or subsequent training disposition has been disclosed. Nor has the Navy said whether either woman will return.⁠¹

The command’s response explains why the public record remains spare. A spokesperson told CBS:

That statement neither confirms the reported record nor contradicts it. It also leaves no basis for reconstructing the women’s medical or personal circumstances. The defensible account is narrower: two reported advances to week three, followed by different exits, with only the enlisted sailor described as entering Hell Week.

Hell Week begins in the fourth week and lasts five and a half days, according to both CBS’s account and an official Naval Special Warfare photo caption. The Navy caption describes about four hours of sleep in total, more than 200 miles of running and more than 20 hours of physical training a day. Candidates carry logs, launch boats into breaking waves and lie in cold ocean water.⁠¹⁠³⁹

Reaching that test means surviving substantial selection beforehand. But reaching week three, entering Hell Week and completing Hell Week are three separate achievements. The reporting establishes neither woman as a Hell Week finisher.⁠¹

The useful context is not simply that SEAL training is hard. It is that many candidates leave—or move to another class—before its most famous ordeal begins. CBS cited Navy figures covering 1998–2023, released through the Freedom of Information Act, showing about 45% of candidates removed or rolled back during the three weeks preceding Hell Week. Its summary also put voluntary withdrawal before Hell Week at about 29%. These are historical figures for the broader candidate population, not rates specific to women.⁠¹

The underlying FOIA tables were not available for independent examination for this article. That limits how precisely their denominators and counting rules can be assessed. One distinction is clear in the reported figures, however: removal and rollback are grouped together in some measures. A candidate reassigned to another class has not necessarily permanently left the qualification route.

CBS’s summary put overall attrition across the training route at about 68%. It described the seven-week first phase, which includes Hell Week, as the stage with the greatest losses: 66% were removed or rolled into another class. Around 21% left during Hell Week for voluntary, medical or performance reasons; CBS interpreted that figure as nearly four in five entrants finishing the test.⁠¹

Later-stage figures were much lower: 5% in combat diving, 3% in land warfare and under 1% in SEAL Qualification Training. Those percentages concern different stages and groups. They cannot be added together, treated uniformly as permanent departures or converted into either woman’s personal odds of qualifying. What they do show, in the reported historical summary, is how heavily selection falls on the opening weeks.⁠¹

There was still a long route ahead. BUD/S lasts roughly six months, followed by roughly another six months of SEAL Qualification Training. The Navy’s personnel guidance distinguishes the two courses and identifies the Trident insignia awarded to SQT graduates as signifying SEAL qualification. Week three is early progress, not a near-graduation result.⁠¹⁠³⁰

Women gained access following Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s December 3, 2015 decision to open all military occupations and positions to women beginning in January 2016. That policy opened the opportunity to attempt selection; it did not confer selection or qualification.⁠²⁸

Nor should this reported BUD/S milestone erase earlier service. Women had worked alongside special operations forces for decades. In 2021, a woman graduated from the Navy’s separate special warfare boat-crew training route. Those crews operate heavily armed, high-speed craft that transport SEALs, but they undergo their own selection and training. That graduation was not a SEAL qualification.⁠¹

The fairest reading avoids both inflation and dismissal. Neither woman earned a Trident through this attempt. Yet leaving a course does not make the distance reached meaningless, especially in a selection system that removes or reassigns so many candidates early. Their reported progress can mark a boundary moving without proving anything sweeping about women’s eventual success—or failure—as SEAL candidates. Whether week three truly was an unprecedented boundary remains a claim awaiting independent public confirmation.