Females welcomed to Commando selection – but standards remain as arduous as ever
The Royal Marines have released a series of videos outlining their key values of integrity, humility, self-discipline and excellence.
But these values aren't new, so why shout about them now?
I went to the Commando Training Centre to ask whether the timing is related to criticism in the media.
Colonel Innes Catton, the Commandant of CTC Royal Marines, told me: "There has been some assertions made that perhaps we're changing training for the worse, to make it easier, to perhaps get more people through – which we would utterly refute.
"Let me be really clear. No change in the Commando tests.
"And I say that because they are the holy cows. The physical standards here are as arduous as they've ever been.
"Come down here and challenge those standards if anyone's bold enough to do it. We'd welcome it. And I suspect they aren't."
He went on: "We are changing training, though. We are making it better. In Phase One now, the earliest stages of training, every recruit is operating a drone.
"If anything, we're improving the standards."
As well as a fear over standards dropping to tick boxes, the colonel also addressed a lack of female faces passing through the Royal Marines Commando course.
With more than 900 applicants to this day, no women have made it through.
"Most men can't complete this training, and therefore the women that might be able to do it are extremely high-performing," Col Catton pointed out.
"They are out there. I wonder if they're out there, though already gainfully employed in the sorts of elite sports that might otherwise be more appealing to them than necessarily coming down to be a Royal Marine Commando.
"But I am rocket clear. There are women out there that could come and do this training if they were motivated enough to do it. And we have had some women recently who have come close.
"Unfortunately, they haven't met all of the standards, but we absolutely want you.
"The two questions Commandos always used to ask in World War Two. Are you here to help? Are you any good?
"Well, the third question we need to add is 'And we want you if you're different'. We want you if you're different because the cognitive edge is going to be a game-changer for us going forwards."
He added: "So whilst everyone is really drawn to the physicality of Royal Marine Commando training, understandably it is hard and it is arduous and we need hard people who can do hard things in hard places.
"It is so much more than the physicality."
Ultimately, the message is that whether you are male or female, the UK relies on quality in Commando selection – and so do its most elite units.
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