#7 NSW: A Female Perspective

Women have quietly served in Naval Special Warfare for years. Today, we spoke with two female warriors who deployed with the Teams. For more info go to www.sealswcc.com.

00:00:02

The only easy day was yesterday. (Intro)

00:00:22

(Angie Giovannini Intro) In two thousand fifteen, the Department of Defense announced that they were opening front-line combat roles to women for the first time in American history. In two thousand sixteen, they were given the opportunity to apply to the Navy SEALs and SWCC. But female sailors have deployed with SEAL teams and other special operations units for years in important, front-line roles.

In this episode, I speak with two such women who have deployed multiple times with America’s elite special operations units, and still serve with them today.

First you’ll hear from Jannelle, who is serving on active duty with the training staff at BUD/S.

00:01:00

AG: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. I know you have a pretty unique perspective, and so let’s start out with you just telling us a little bit about what you do, how you got to where you are, a little background.

00:01:11

J: Sure. I’ve worked with NSW in the past. My last command was here in Coronado, so that’s a SWCC command, and I was approached from my Command Master Chief about the women in Special [Operations] Forces and if I wanted to support that initiative and come to the Center and kind of be in the role where you establish the transition from just a male pipeline to open it to females. So, obviously, I was totally, totally onboard with going over to the Center just cause I love the community and wanted to stay within it, and, yeah, support the whole full integration of women.

00:01:49

AG: And what attracted you to this community? What was it about it?

00:01:52

J: When I first joined the Navy, I just really wanted to do anything that was active and physically demanding. I played sports in college and pretty much my whole life, CrossFit, things like that, so I was drawn to the physicality and also, to be quite honest, I didn’t want to be on a ship.

00:02:10

AG: And when you are on deployment or in operation, in operational zones, what would you say life is like? What’s your everyday life that you can talk about?

00:02:20

J: It’s been mostly with SEAL teams deployment and then also EOD, and it’s, so a normal day really is a normal night. Most everything is done at night on deployment, and it’s, I think I have a unique deployment experience just because deploying with a SEAL team is just such a close-knit group. You become like almost a family, especially because it’s such a small, small group. But, yeah, the days are, days are long. You know, I spend a lot of time in the tactical operations center just cause I do Intelligence and really just supporting the troop as much as I can for their operations.

00:02:58

AG: Can you explain a little bit what “Intelligence” means?

00:03:01

J: Sure, so Intelligence in the Navy is just basically analyzing threats and, in a tactical sense, targeting essentially the enemy forces.

00:03:12

AG: You mentioned how important it is the camaraderie that happens when you’re on these missions. Can you talk about the importance of teamwork, especially from the perspective of someone that is being attached to different teams at different times? How does that work, the dynamic?

00:03:26

J: Yeah, I think teamwork is the reason this community is so successful. I think from a very beginning, you, you start doing everything together, you know, and you embrace, like I didn’t go through BUDS, obviously, but you do go through workups on deployment, and it kind of sucks. So, what I like to say is you embrace the suck together, and you, you certainly build a trust and camaraderie with one another, so, where you gain credibility, and people learn to trust you, you know, and see if you’re good at your job. I think that if you don’t have that(continued)