The tasks, which involve various long marches over mountainous terrain while carrying heavy rucksacks, are understood to be prohibitive to women and inessential to selecting candidates with the attributes required to succeed in the SAS. The government said it wanted to see all close combat units in the British military open to women by 2019. Ben Macintyre, author of SAS: Rogue Heroes, criticised the one-dimensional view of muscular SAS soldiers operating behind enemy lines. Not the he-men that we associate with the SAS today.”“[David] Sterling [the founder of the SAS] was looking for very specific qualities in his recruits,” he said. Those who complete the test go on to undertake jungle exercises in Belize and interrogation exams elsewhere.

Source: The Guardian December 03, 2017 16:13 UTC