The Discovery Channel is heading to Key West to shoot footage for an upcoming program about elite Army commandos.

The cable station will film at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School on Fleming Key and feature the soldiers undergoing scuba and parachute training at the base just north of Key West. Television crews are scheduled to begin filming in March, said Maj. David Butler, spokesman for the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Army leaders were happy with a Discovery Channel special that aired in December called "Two Weeks in Hell," which documented Special Forces recruits undergoing brutal training at Fort Bragg, and agreed to let film crews enter the dive school in Key West for a similar show, Butler said.

"That show got great ratings and increased interest in what we do," Butler said. "They approached us to do another, based on that success, for a kind of sequel, but the specifics are still being ironed out."

The upcoming show has yet to be named -- it reportedly will not be called "Two Weeks in Hell" -- and it will air sometime later this year, though the date has not yet been confirmed, according to Discovery Channel representatives.

The little-known Key West Combat Diver Qualification Course is a harsh six-week crash course in scuba and stealthy war-zone infiltration techniques for the Army's most specialized soldiers, commonly referred to as Green Berets.

The course culminates in a test that requires the men to sky-dive miles offshore and navigate under water using high-tech, closed-circuit, re-breather scuba systems before storming the beaches at Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, and rendezvousing with a "friendly" force to accomplish a classified "mission."

Many of the men who attend the school fail to complete the final test, said the school's commander, Maj. Peter Russo. Many of the instructors, as well as students, are combat veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflicts.

Green Berets traditionally avoid the spotlight, given the classified nature of their missions, a point illustrated by their own moniker, "the quiet professionals."

"Six weeks is a long time to have a houseguest, so some of the guys are just a little bit guarded," Russo said. "But it's going to be interesting. We're just going to do what we normally do. They could bring in ringers from Hollywood based on what they think Special Forces is about and no one could train those ringers to do what our guys are doing during their six weeks here. I'm confident it's going to be worth watching."

alinhardt@keysnews.com