The Defense Department opened the military’s elite units, such as the SEALs and the Army’s Green Berets, to women in 2016 but no woman has ever finished the process to become a SEAL.

He said there are about 500 women serving in certain Naval Special Warfare Command jobs, including in combat support missions, and they have been deploying with units for more than a decade.

Recent directives have spelled out how this is going to take place. A ground-breaking directive like this back in the 1990s might have caught the Navy SEALs, and those who train Navy SEALs, off guard.