A former top U.S. Navy SEAL says the Defense Department's plan to allow women to join the elite combat unit may present some problems, but is best looked at with tolerance.
"I'm pretty down the middle. I look at it from an open mind. You're going to have a lot of resistance to change,'' Brandon Webb told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
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"In the special operations community, it's primarily been a boys club for quite some time now and kind of the last bastion of an all-male unit," Webb said
It was revealed earlier this week that women could start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as
Navy SEALs a year later.
Webb, editor-in-chief of SOFREP.com, a leading site for information about the United States and allied special operations community, said women have made great strides in the military.
"We saw the integration of the female pilots in the Navy, in combat roles, and the resistance there in the beginning," he said.
"Women have been in combat in Afghanistan supporting in a Special Operations capacity for years now," Webb said.
Webb said a major concern for those in the Navy SEALS is that the unit's standards are so precise — or "written in blood."
"I'm less concerned about the physical standards as I am the actual test that these guys go through, and now these women will likely go through ... whether it's a diving physics test or any type of academic stuff or you name it," he said.
"Granted, men and women are different physically. So that's going to be a major point of discussion."
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