Approximately 60 female recruits will begin training at the San Diego Marines training post in February, Military.com reports.

The decision is part of a congressional mandate requiring the U.S. Marine Corps to make its entry-training coed. Previously all female Marine recruits would go to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina for their boot camp. The Corps is required to end its female-only training practice within five years at Parris Island and within eight at San Diego.

In 2019, the first-ever gender-integrated company, which include five male platoons one female platoon, graduated from Parris Island in 2019.

Military leaders have previously said that coed companies perform the same, if not better, than other 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,'” said retired Maj. Gen. William Mullen, the former head of Marine Corps Training and Education Command. “So there was a little bit of that effect. But other than that, there was no real difference.”

Photo by Lance Cpl. Maximiliano Bavastro