"Three Dozen Women Have Applied to be Army Ranger..." Topic

…School Advisers.

"More than three dozen women have applied to be advisers at the U.S. Army's elite Ranger School so far, an official said.

The service through Oct. 10 is accepting applications from female soldiers interested in becoming observers or advisers at the historically all-male combat training course, a punishing two-month ordeal designed to train future infantry leaders. It's the first step in possibly opening the school to women.

If the Army moves forward with the plan, the women will start a modified training regimen next year to give them a sense of what the program is like so they can work alongside male instructors and help observe the female students selected for the first-ever co-ed class, known as the Ranger Course Assessment, tentatively scheduled for this spring…"
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So, the future armies on the wargame table would have to show female soldiers. (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Good luck to them, it'll be a long and steep uphill road to travel.

I had a CO who used to brag about only washing out of Ranger school 3 times due to being 'peered out'.

I never had the physical/mental chuzpah to even go but I don't think getting peered out was something to brag about :)

Being peered out is certainly nothing to brag about.

Insofar as women going for the tab I'd be curious to see how well their muscular and bone structure hold up. The Fl. phase will show how they are able to deal with the near constant immersion to say nothing of the stress of 61 days worth of greatly diminished rations and sleep over the length of the course.

Personally, I think the Army will take the PC approach and modify the requirements so females can complete the course.

Could be very useful for all sorts of covert work. But surely better to set up a separate school, which takes into account evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of women. They could be awarded the pink (fluffy) beret.

Well ladies ISIS isn't school so be careful what you ask for you just might get it.

Being a ranger and being ranger-qualified are two very different things. Women have argued (successfully) that the inability to be ranger qualified inhibits their ability to get command slots that women are allowed currently to hold but their male counter-parts who are ranger-qualified have an advantage in the selection process. Even if a woman gets to the school and gets the tab, that's still a far cry from serving in the battalion. It's pretty much the same situation as being airborne qualified and serving in an airborne infantry unit. Women have been able to go to airborne school for over 30 years but they still aren't assigned to airborne infantry units.

Having said that, I agree that the brass will insist the course be altered so women are able to complete it. That is a shame and I really feel sorry for the black hats that will be pressured to let a woman or two slide through the program.

As usual when this topic (women in the military) is brought up, TMP members are falling over themselves to display their misogyny.

I don't think you read my post carefully. I have NO objection to women wanting to go to Ranger school and get qualified and understand the reason why they want to do it. I doubt the standards will remain as high as they should not because I believe no woman can meet them but because the SotA and the rest of the brass-hats won't want the existing standards to keep them from meeting a goal of political correctness within an arbitrary timeframe.

"As usual when this topic (women in the military) is brought up, TMP members are falling over themselves to display their misogyny."

And also as usual, some posters exaggerate and misuse a word to lump together anyone who dares point out the realities of real life experience. Political correctness may be the death of us all.

I'm all for women in the military, as long as the standards are kept in place. If they can compete at the same standard as men, more power to them. Adjusting the standards so women can get through the training just weakens the unit. In my time in the military, I have worked with spectacular female soldiers, good, solid and reliable. I have also worked with female soldiers that used the reduce standards to their advantage and couldn't understand why no one wanted to work with them and why they got no respect.

The easy answer here is to remove ranger qualification from consideration for promotion for positions where such a qualification is not really all-that applicable. Does it really matter all that much if the commander of a helicopter squadron or an air-defense artillery battery has been to ranger school or not? It only really matters for infantry units which women cannot be in, ranger-qualified or not.

> Political correctness may be the death of us all.

At least political incorrectness only leads to the death of the few.

If they can do the school the same as it been for years for the men that have passed it without lowering the standards in place. All the power to them. If they can't pass then they fail just like the men that fail. Lowering the standards for anyone is wrong and will endanger the people fighting along side them, not just themselves. Its a very hard job and if you can't cut the training school you will never cut it in the field.

They don't have to cut it in the field Ron, they can't serve in the field, not as Rangers or combat infantry anyway. The problem is lowering the standard in Ranger school so women can be ranger-qualified and apply for command slots on an equal footing with men who are ranger-qualified lowers the quality of training for those who are becoming ranger-qualified so they can serve in a ranger unit. That is the tragedy here. That's why I advocate taking ranger school out of consideration for non-infantry command slots and you eliminate the need for women to attend the school. As most of us have said, if a woman can meet the current standards and graduate, my hats off to them, but they actually NEED to be able to attend as it stands because of the way promotion boards currently consider candidates.

I lived around Rangers most of my youth before going off to my own adult life.Dad was a Ranger and taught at Benning. Additionally Hunter AAF was near where I went to college so I know a fair bit about it.

As it stands, if held to the same standards, I've never met woman who would physically be able to pass the current course. They are just built the wrong way and designed to cope with different physical stresses. The Ranger course is designed against a male physique, particular upper body strength and endurance.

They will by necessity have to design a course for women in order to have it apply. That's not misogyny. That's fact.

Having said that, maybe they can make a course designed to stress women similarly but in ways appropriate to their physical acumen.

Will they be as effective as male Rangers? I don't know. Only way to find out is to honestly try.

What I do NOT want is to dumb down the course so they pass. Making it an affirmative action program would be insulting to everyone, but most particularly women.

First off, if women are not going to serve AS rangers then the best course is to negate that requirement to make higher ranks. Ranger training is expensive – allowing someone to take it just so they can rise in rank is stupid.

Second, and I'll get roasted for saying it but so be it. A good bit of the physical training is not to make the ranger physically stronger but rather to push them to the physical (and more importantly mental) limits to try and break them – better it happens in qualifications than in the field. If the training is changed for a female to take them to the limit it is not "dumbing down" the training.

I've never met woman who would physically be able to pass the current course…

I have met exactly one, she was in my ROTC class in college and she was a Jr. Olympic gold medalist in the shot put

I went to Ranger school in college in lieu of the two-week ROTC leadership course (9 weeks of some of the toughest training the army could throw at you instead of a two-week blow off course – probably not the wisest decision I ever made but I'm proud of the tab) I was never in the Ranger battalion or an infantry unit for that matter but going to Ranger training was a good decision as it gave me a leg up on the competition. In the current environment where the officer corps is looking at huge drawdowns, who can blame anyone for trying to get any advantage they can. Ranger training should not be a resume stuffer for officers, but it is and has been for decades. Lets get rid of THAT, like Dynaman8789 said, its stupid.

Ranger training should not be a resume stuffer for officers, but it is and has been for decades. Lets get rid of THAT, like Dynaman8789 said, its stupid.

Oh YES! I meet so many tab wearers and few Rangers.

"Additionally Hunter AAF was near where I went to college so I know a fair bit about it."

I grew up next to Harvard Medical School, but I don't know a d** thing about being a doctor.

Well, I'm going to have to agree with many here … Lets hope the current PC trends don't make any more bad choices …

As usual when this topic (women in the military) is brought up, TMP members are falling over themselves to display their misogyny.

I Don't agree Nick … anyone who really knows anything about Infantrymen, RANGERs, etc. … see things in a much more realistic light.

I am an Army Ranger and have no particular poltical axe to grind on this. However when it all comes down to it the Military of any nation has just one purpose (regardless of what social experimenters may believe) that purpose is to to be the meanest ugliest baddest dog on the front porch to make any group with bad intents think twice about trying to impact our people or way of life. If they make the wrong decision then the job is to be the absolute best at killing the enemy military and breaking things that they want to keep, and doing so in a way that make them realize the error of their ways.

The Ranger training program is a small unit leader tactical training. It is not really needed by staff (unless in a light infantry or Ranger unit) nor by rear echelon units. Neither should slots be spent on senior officers (though I went through training with a promotable Lieutenant Colonel). The tab is not "required" for any command slots other than Infantry or Special Ops- it may be an extra qualifier but so is a masters or other spcialized training that is not specifially direct action combat focused.

Those who go to Ranger school should be the door kickers or their direct leaders. Those rough men who stand guard so that the rest of the 99.5% of our nation can sleep soundly in their beds at night. Any other use of this training is a waste of our nations valuable and limited resources. So if those female Soldiers are going to be able to do the job- and I think some can (very few- and yes there are few males who can also) there must be ZERO watering down of standards and if they are able to make it with the full requirements then I will shake their hands as fellow warriors.

All free nations need to ensure that we all make the kind of decisions that are needed to keep us free in the face of increasing threats from around the world.

The situation here, has many commenting on a subject they know very little to nothing about. However, all POVs are just part of a discussion … even if they may sound a bit crazy to those who were/are Infantrymen, RANGERs, etc. … And based on some of the comments here, I'm pretty sure it is easy to pick out those who were not in the military or certainly not an Infantryman, RANGER, etc. …

Guys who served can almost always pick out blowhards who say they served but didn't. I used to see this a lot in the 70's. Guys who claimed to be Vietnam vets but their stories were pure nonsense and when you asked them how old they were, they were almost always too young to have been there. Most folks think we left in 1975 when Saigon fell but virtually all of our ground forces were gone by the middle of 1973. I was in high school when Saigon fell and in junior high when MACV closed down but I met dozens of guys who claimed to be vets over the years who on closer examination where younger than me. I guess Afghan and Iraq vets run into the same thing nowadays.