Women Rangers
August 19, 2015
JACQUELINE writes:
As I was making bread I heard, “Two women have graduated from Ranger School,” coming from the living room TV. I turned around slowly to see the anchor’s wide smile. It was a face saying, “Isn’t this just swell!”
According to this Army Times article,
“The Army on Monday announced two women and 94 men met the standards of the course’s third and final phase, also known as the Swamp Phase.Two women will graduate from Ranger School on Friday, becoming the first women to earn the Ranger Tab. Their graduation ceremony will take place on Victory Pond at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The women are part of the Army’s gender-integrated assessment of the grueling two-month Ranger School.
The assessment has drawn a high level of scrutiny, with many questioning whether the Army is lowering its standards for the elite school — which until now was open only to men — while many others have cheered on the female students.
Army officials insisted the standards were not changed in any way.
…..
The women in the course are part of a one-time, integrated assessment of the storied school. The assessment is part of a wider effort to determine whether and how to open combat arms jobs to women. Army leaders have said a second such assessment likely will take place in the fall, although no final decisions have been made.
Nineteen female and 381 male soldiers started Ranger School on April 20. Eight of the women made it through RAP week. None of the eight women made it past the Darby Phase on the first try and were recycled, along with 101 of their male classmates, on May 8.
After the second attempt at the Darby Phase, three female and two male students on May 29 were given the option of a Day One Recycle, which is a normal course procedure that’s used when students struggle with one aspect of the course and excel at others, said officials at Fort Benning.
The two male students declined to recycle, officials said.
The remaining five women returned to their units and were not recycled again. A total of 29 students were dropped from the course for failing to meet the standards of the Darby Phase.
These students did not meet the standard for a number of reasons, including leading patrols, poor peer evaluations, too many negative spot reports, or a combination of all three.
The three remaining female students started the Mountain Phase of Ranger School on July 11. One female soldier was required to recycle Mountain Phase with the rotation beginning Aug. 8.
On average, more than 34 percent of Ranger School graduates recycle at least one phase of the school. About 61 percent of recycles are due to patrols.”
— Comments —
John writes:
The Army said it did not lower standards to let these women pass. Maybe, but I wonder. After VMI was forced to take female cadets, its administration claimed that physical standards weren’t lowered for their benefit. Nevertheless, I knew a professor there who said it was a complete lie. Does any one here have any thoughts or insights as to whether these Ranger women got special treatment?
Dan R. writes:
The much written about Title IX has created a greater supply of elite female athletes in the colleges than ever before, so I don’t find it beyond the imagination that some of these women could pass a rigorous set of physical tests on the order of what’s required for the Rangers. However, even accepting the legitimacy of the testing process, the numbers are so small that one must wonder why the bother? Or else admire the military’s dedication to a cause. Or maybe just admire these womens’
dedication to The Cause. They remind me of the Stakhanovites, those true believers in the Soviet cause who pushed themselves beyond their limits for the glory of the revolution. Here it’s our own feminist revolution, probably no less a cause to our new Rangers.
Laura writes:
I think it’s very important to bother.
An all-male institution is an affront to the New World Order.
