Female US Marines take on gruelling 'Crucible training' for first time
More than 50 new female Marines have completed the gruelling "Crucible" training exercise at a San Diego base for the first time in the service's 100-year history.
The three-day challenge is one of the most arduous in the US military and is required of recruits hoping to graduate from the historically all-male Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.
The training involves target practice, hand-to-hand combat, assault courses and the notoriously difficult "Reaper" hike, which caps off the 13-week boot camp.
The "Reaper" hike, the final stage, requires recruits to scale rugged terrain and a steep ridge while carrying gear weighing as much as 75lbs for almost 10 miles.
A total of 53 women joined their male counterparts for the first-ever mixed company at the San Diego base this week to complete the Crucible.
They were presented with eagle, globe and anchor pins to mark the completion of the challenge and their graduation as US Marines.
The all-female platoon, which was part of Lima Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, won the final drill competition, Captain Martin Harris, a spokesman for the depot, told the website Military.com.
The female platoon also "won all the physical events" in the boot camp, with the highest physical and combat fitness test scores throughout, he said.
The recruits first arrived at the San Diego training camp in February, with 59 women joining the men in the company.
Recruits can sometimes be held back by illness or injury. Some 53 women completed the Crucible, an attrition rate comparable to that of the men, according to Capt Harris.
Recruits who become injured during the Crucible can still graduate if their drill instructors believe they have otherwise met all the criteria.
The first ever integrated training at the San Diego base followed a 2019 mandate from Congress ordering the all-male boot camp to integrate women into its entry training by 2028.
Another Marine training centre, the Parris Island depot in South Carolina, was ordered to do the same by 2025.
Until now, all female recruits have attended boot camp at the Parris Island training base.
The Marines Corps has been slow to adopt integrated training for new recruits, lagging far behind other branches of the US military.
But Marine officials said the mixed-gender companies have performed as well as or better than the all-male or all-female companies.
"If anything, it went a little better because there's a little bit more competition with [each platoon] going, 'No, we need to beat them,' or 'We can't let them beat us,'" now-retired Maj. Gen. William Mullen told Military.com.
The Marines have struggled to attract enough women to form integrated companies regularly, with women comprising just 8 per cent of the service.
Given the success of the first integrated company at the San Diego base, officials said the depot is determined to accept more women as soon as it is feasible.
