The Navy’s special warfare community has grown in size over the past few years but still remains overwhelmingly white. It’s a statistic officials are working hard to change.
Today’s force of SEALs and SWCCs, or special warfare combatant-craft crewmen, is roughly 85 percent white, according to Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, Calif. That’s much higher than the Navy overall — which in 2010 was about 64 percent white, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center — and is also out of whack with the cultural environments in which today’s SEALs operate.
That gap remains despite concerted efforts by Naval Special Warfare Command to seek more minority candidates and expand its overall recruiting pitch to get more SEALs and SWCCs to fill the larger force mandated by Congress. But as the community grew in size, the command also beefed up standards and requirements during the 26-week SEAL Qualification Training, causing graduation rates to drop across all ethnicities.
“Where we stand today is, we have more work to do,” said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who heads Naval Special Warfare Command’s recruiting directorate.
“We absolutely have a need for operational diversity. For us to train with our special operations partner nations, our mission is more easily accomplished if we have people with the cultural and racial identities that allow us to create lasting relationships to better understand our partner forces,” Smith said.
But recent years’ efforts, which included tailoring marketing to minorities and reaching out to historically black colleges and universities, fell flat in attracting more minorities to the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course and follow-on SQT.
So the command is casting the net wide again, getting outside help to market to minority populations and taking a more coherent look at targeting communities with potential minority candidates — not just blacks.
A recent directive from Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, head of Naval Special Warfare Command, expanded the range of targeted minorities to young men of Asian and Arab descent, as well as Hispanics.
“We are moving the needle, but it is a slow process. It takes time,” Smith said.
Recent efforts to reach more blacks helped to better understand the community, he said.
“We have really learned or developed a template that allows us to better understand ... a culture that we may not have been heavily engaged in,” he said. “So we built a road map on how to build trust ... and respect in the minority communities.”
Don’t expect to see quotas, however.
“We have no numeric goal for diversity. This is not a quota-based operation,” Smith said. “This is really just wanting to make progress and to better prepare our force to conduct overseas operations.”
And the command won’t ease its tough standards to become a SEAL or SWCC. “We are trying to become more diverse, but our standards have never been compromised,” he said, “and will not be compromised.”
OUTREACH AND EDUCATION
Officials are reaching out to parents, teachers, coaches and other “influencers” to get their message to young men — even those still in middle or high school — that naval special warfare is an exciting place of opportunity, regardless of their upbringing, experiences or ethnic or racial background. “We as the SEAL team have probably not been as successful as we should be in communicating that there is a direct and very positive impact on success later in life by having served as a SEAL,” Smith said.
“A lot of the diverse or minority communities that we address really view military service and education as two different worlds, as being mutually exclusive.” he said. “The opposite is true.”
With combat and global operations keeping spec ops forces deployed and in demand, the Navy doesn’t have enough SEALs and SWCCs — especially minorities — to send to recruiting districts and scout neighborhoods, schools, sports teams and urban areas. Contractors will help with outreach, and the latest push will concentrate on many minority neighborhoods, said Scott Williams, a command spokesman.
Recruiting and marketing efforts are being stepped up in San Diego and Norfolk, Va., where SEALs and SWCCs have joined in local swim programs geared toward children and young adults, as well as in Detroit and Dearborn, Mich., home to large concentrations of blacks and Arab-Americans. The swim programs provide community service and show that swimming skills can be taught to those who never swam in a pool or in the ocean.
“The swim component of SEAL training and SWCC training across all cultures is one that is a dividing factor,” Smith said, noting those unfamiliar with swimming have the toughest time passing the physical screening test. “We’ve gotten them to increase their performance well beyond our entry standards.
“Our real mission is to make sure the SEAL/SWCC opportunity is open to anyone,” Smith said. “You just have to have the mental toughness to decide that is what you want to do.”
This year, the command also extended its reach by participating in nine of the NFL’s regional scouting combines, where prospective players show off their skills.
“As it turns out, what got you here, with your opportunity with the NFL, is a lot about what makes the SEAL program successful,” Pybus told one group at a session supported by members of Naval Special Warfare Group 2. Several SEALs joined in the visits, meeting athletes and sharing their stories, including a SEAL lieutenant who had played college football before enlisting in the Navy.
Nearly 100 of the 1,900 athletes, about 80 percent of whom were minorities, asked for more information about naval special warfare or becoming a SEAL, Smith said, adding, “that is a pool of 100 young talented men. That right there is success for us.
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