SECNAV: Women will serve on attack subs - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

SECNAV: Women will serve on attack subs

The Navy’s top civilian said that attack submarines are in the future for both enlisted and commissioned women.

As the first wave of female officers moves through training to report to ballistic and guided-missile submarines in November, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said enlisted women should also have the opportunity to serve on submarines. Additionally, both enlisted women and female officers should be allowed to serve onboard attack submarines, not just the guided-missile and ballistic boats open to them today.

The Navy is “doing whatever needs to be done to integrate women into attack submarines as well. That will be a little further down the road. The same thing is true for enlisted, moving forward doing the things we will have to do to integrate them. That effort is well underway and I don’t see any insurmountable hurdles to what’s happening to women with submarines. I don’t think that should be an area that’s off-limits to women in the Navy,” Mabus said during a breakfast meeting with reporters Wednesday.

He did not mention a timeline or say if there are any studies into allowing women onto all classes of subs.

So far 10 female junior officers have passed through Naval Nuclear Power School and into nuclear prototype training, the second phase of officer nuclear training.

While Mabus said women should be able to hold any job in the Navy, he elaborated on his reluctance to allow women to be SEALs.

“It’s my notion that women should have the same opportunities as men in the Navy,” Mabus told Navy Times during a March 31 interview. “The only reason I’m being a little hesitant for the SEALs is some of the physical things you’ve got to go through to be a SEAL.”

He detailed a recent trip to Coronado, Calif., where he stopped by a workout room for injured SEALs in training and saw one sailor wearing a weight vest do a series of jumps onto a waist-high platform as well as several upside-down pushups.

“Lord have mercy,” Mabus said. “And he was hurt.”

The physical demands of the job make him hesitant to open it to women, he said.

“In terms of SEALs themselves, I don’t know. … My notion is that the playing field should be exactly the same for men as it is for women. But in terms of SEALs, the playing field isn’t even for all men,” he said.

He would not comment about whether woman who could do a series of upside-down pushups while wearing a weight vest hypothetically could become a SEAL.