Women in Ranger School
For your information, I’m not going to do a daily update on the women who are in Ranger School, I know it’s happening and I’m wishing them all luck – they’ve already accomplished more than me in that regard, but the prospect of 63 posts about it bores me.
I sincerely hope that some of the women make it all the way through to graduation, if for no other reason, to prove that the standard isn’t too high and needs to be changed in order to meet the quota demands of the social engineers.
The Washington Post reports that 16 of the 19 women who took the PT test yesterday passed, 78 of the men also failed the test. They weren’t serious about the course, I mean if you can’t pass a simple PT test, you weren’t ready to pass the course.
According to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, the test consisted of “49 pushups, 59 situps, a 5-mile run in 40 minutes or less, and six chin-ups”. Not grueling at all. In fact, my privates can tell you that they did that and more every morning in a straight leg infantry platoon.
Category: Military issues
ALL will fail…if they maintain the standards. Period. And I don’t mean menses.
What happens if they don’t all fail? Question mark. I hear crow tastes great roasted with a little bit of rosemary.
The first woman to graduate gets to cook the crow! With rosemary…
Classy.
A touch of rosemary always adds class where there was previously none.
BeretVerde will Choke on his Denny’s.
COULD some female ACTUALLY and LEGITIMATELY pass the course? Always possible. Likely? Mmmmmm,nope.
The key to this and any other forced admission of women is STAYING TRUE TO THE STANDARDS in place. Is THAT happening now? Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha…..
Make 49 sandwiches, draw 59 draft beers, and serve them to 40 starving ranger school graduates in under 8 minutes.
THAT should be the test they are taking!
Uh… I meant serve it all in under 5 minutes. (I was thinking 8 minute per mile pace) Either way – point made!
That’s too much, and exactly the kind of knuckle-dragging attitude the geniuses in Washington are counting on. Thanks for that, high-speed.
I’m happy to accept anyone who graduates from Ranger school… under ACTUAL Ranger standards… into the fold. What I’m not thrilled about is the idea of watering down the tab.
Your very last sentence shows that you and I aligned on this issue and we agree completely.
So why is it too much?
I am sure that is your real issue, worrying about the tab. That was clearly evident by your comment that the women candidates test should be about serving food and beer. I believe that sheds more light onto your true thoughts. Worried that there are some women out there that can show you up?
Oh my gosh you saw right through me…. I’m so worried a woman will show me up… your thought shedding light shines brightly….sighhh…
Ok I don’t want to go too deep and give away my motive behind the sammiches and beer comment, but I guess I might have to.
It was a joke! For my entertainment and the entertainment of others who might find it entertaining. And if you are going to reply and say that my joke was offensive, I’ll beat you to the punch and say that I’m offended at your offense. Take that! Haha.
Don’t worry, your “jokes” don’t offend me. One of the most wonderful things about our country is that you can pretty much say whatever the hell you want. But what many people forget (and I think you’re one of them) is that when you say stupid shit, it’s just as much my right (and responsibility) to say, “look at this f*cking moron.”
Oh no I haven’t forgotten. I like people speaking straight out.
Especially when fulfilling the heavy burdened personal responsibility of saying…
“look at this f*cking moron.”
That is a heavy burden brother. I wish there were more like you. Keep up the Fire!
You know damn well that it’ll be by quota once all is said and done.
X percent of females will be assigned the slots and z percent of those females will pass, regardless of actual performance.
That’s how this bullshit is going to end up. That’s how this type bullshit always ends up.
Agreed. I have no desire to see the standards changed. They are there for a reason: survival, not politics.
Yep, it does get in there…
Make sammies and tap a keg? Check. And I can bandage wounds, maintain IV’s, and sling bedpans. I can set fence posts, stretch wire, and prepare twenty horses for an all day trail, and then lead the ride. I can clean and cook and hunt and butcher. I am fairly strong, but what I have never been, is a warrior. I could have the best trainers in the world, and I could not ever be a Ranger. I don’t thing strength alone is what makes a Ranger. It remains to be seen if they will find any women who have the spirit, and the fire, that DOES make a Ranger.
BZ Pinto Nag !!!
Excellent points, all.
OC
Neanderthal that I am, I concur
While the standards sound easy enough, any one who has ever taken THAT pt test, knows Ranger standards are different. RIs judge every rep very strictly. If your legs swing or move forward at all, a chin up doesn’t count. A push up completed too quickly will not count. That 16 women passed that, I already am convinced they are getting treated easier.
That and they have had quite a long period of time to train up for this. Most guys I knew who went to Ranger School, did not get excused from their regular duties to exclusively train to go to Ranger School.
Yup, hearing the RI repeat “11” after every push-up after 11 was a classic trick. A friend of mine was in a class with a few SEALs. Remarkably, every one of the SEALs failed the combat water survival test.
Hell, the SGT Airborne’s did that to me in Airborne school. I failed push ups on the first go and I have no idea why (he failed me by 1).
The re-tester took pity on me since I have a 70″+ arm length, he told me when he passed me that the SGT was a dick.
(Admin, ignore the report comment, I hit the wrong damn button, sorry bobo.)
Slause says, “… I have a 70″+ arm length…”
Are you King-Bloody-Kong???
Google Search: How many inches in 1 arms-length? The answer is 27.5
Your 70″ comes out to 2.54 arms-lengths.
The word I meant to use was arm span not length, it’s been a long day. Arm span goes from fingertip to fingertip across the chest. That should be relative to height, since I am 77″ tall 70+ inch arm span is about right. I did measure 1 arm earlier, that came in at 32″ from fingertip to deltoid.
Without evidence of this, your completely speculating. Why not assume that the RI are doing their jobs, and holding everyone to the same standard? Wouldn’t it be better for your argument that women don’t belong in Ranger School if they failed by the same standards?
How many times have you watched reruns of GI Jane?
I am still waiting for the first HOT 12 to graduate and I will buy the first case of “Women RANGERS” calendars!
Good luck to them all!
More than luck is needed to pass that course. Balls are helpful.
First of all, kudos to the 16 women who passed the entry test. I had no doubt that there were women who could do so as I have known many whose physical abilities were far greater than my own. Shame on the 78 men who failed as the test is not that demanding, and they knew the standards far ahead of time. They took a coveted slot from others who desperatly wanted the chance to go.
Ranger School is a 9 week physical and mental endurence test that will make you question your abilities and motivation. Most failures from this point on were usually injury related (I went through in the mid 70’s, but I doubt it’s changed). Best of luck to all those who continue, and yes luck plays a part. As to my belief on whether women should serve in Ranger units, that is a seperate issue I will always struggle with. But if they earn the tab under the current standards, I would be happy to shake their hand and say well done.
The USMC held the standards for Infantry Officer Course, now have to follow the ‘Dempsey Rule’ and prove that the ‘disparate outcome’ wasn’t caused by standards that are “unnecessarily too high”. THAT will be the political fight when it is all said and done. Even if a few women get through Ranger School (and there will most likely be one or two that make it, the quota fairies will kick into high gear and still complain that the standards are too high because the failure rate is so much higher for females.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/19/marine-corps-weighs-lower-standards-for-women-afte/
I do not believe that they need to be there, nor that they should be there… I believe this entire thing is nothing but political correctness run amok. I give them credit for going at all, it was something I often considered but never took that step to accomplish.
I have a lot of issues with how this is being handled, and why it is being done in the first place. Woman complain that they were being denied the promotion points that Ranger School affords others. That they were not able to be promoted as their peers were because they were not able to be in Combat Arms.
Well, few problems rightoff the bat there. Not all males are in Combat Arms either, and they don’t all get to go to the hooah schools. Yet, they get promoted at the same rate as their peers…
I really do not think there was a real problem there that need “fixing”. I do not believe that if woman are ever held to the same standards as their male counterparts that they will be able to succeed at the same rate they have, with their completely different set of standards already in place.
Lowering the standards is the only way that Big Army will ever get enough woman to be able to pass into the combat arms fields (especially Infantry and any who have to hump alongside them). Even then, will they get enough to volunteer to even make this whole circus worthwhile?
Say what you will about homosexuals, and their choices in life… but they have always been in the military and I am betting many Combat Arms guys had them right alonside them and never knew it. This is absolutely, the other end of the spectrum.
My infantry platoon had a homosexical right there beside us all right. It was never an issue. However, what still made that different than having a woman in our infantry platoon is that the homosexical still had a penis. A woman would bring a vagina to the table. And that won’t work. We are different in our bodies, regardless of sexual preference.
I just can’t get past the return on investment with this. Seriously, how many training classes will we have to go through or how much time will it take until we field an entire Ranger company of women? If the Army is comfortable with the answer regardless of ROI, we need to reexamine things. Maybe the intent is to end up with something like WAC was. We are told, for now, that it’s full integration. I shall wait and see.
The only ROI from this will be keeping Congress happy by pandering to their special interest constituents so the budget doesn’t get axed more than it already is.
Warm sammiches on every patrol! That is the ROI you seek!
I will stick with the maxim that anyone can pull a trigger and send lead downrange. If they can complete our “ultimate combat leadership course” then good on them. What role will they fill in combat? I don’t know…but they should be prepared for any situations that can be imagined.
I don’t think the Israelis have watered down any of their standards, and they have women serving in every capability…they are doing fairly well for themselves.
Factually incorrect, do a search for Gaza September 2014 in the Washington Post and read why you’re wrong.
When I first heard about women going to Ranger school, I wondered if they would face the same perils as their male counter parts, such as getting cut on the PT test so the instructors could get the class size down, getting cut for stupid admin reasons or getting dropped for a bad peer eval.I served with men who were all cut from Ranger school for any one of those reasons. Well, a chunk have been lost on the PT test. So maybe the instructors were holding the line on the standards there. Now we’ll see what happens in training. I wonder if this class will get down to a few hangers on and it comes down to that last patrol or that peer eval after getting the squad lost all night. Will the instructors bow to the political pressure and save them, or do like the Marines did and let them fail on their own?
OK, so let’s say some women graduate, at the normal standard. I’m sure there are women that can. After they graduate, what next? They can’t serve in a Ranger battalion. Where’s the gain for the Army in this? Shouldn’t be anybody but 11 series attending Ranger school.
Oh boy now you’ve done it with the “shouldn’t be anybody but 11 series attending Ranger school.”
Wait for it… various MOS’s whining in 3…2…1…
Correct this Zoomie if he is wrong…but other MOSs do attend Ranger, right? I know a bunch of AF Cops who have been through, PJs and CCTs too…
No you are correct. All MOS’s can go and even other branches.
A BUNCH of USAF cops? I only know of 1 but the majority of slots are 11B, 12B, 13F although lately a few long tabbed guys have been going thru in higher numbers it seems.
Let me rephrase my last. Ranger School should be for troops that will actually apply the skills taught. It shouldn’t be used as an advanced leadership course for combat support or combat service support MOS’s.
+5
Diggin’ it…agreed.
That’ll cut the class sizes down since you’ll lose half of the officer corps. Same with Airborne school…
For what it’s worth, when i was AD Army we had a mechanic in my unit that graduated from Ranger School and used that to reclassify to 11B.
WHOA!
Females doing pullups?
Sounds like them Army girls are tougher than the Wooks that run the show over in the Corps.
Wooks!
Damn that’s funny brother!
I had a female Gunnery Sergeant who could knock out 12 in boots and utes.
As a retired Paratrooper I have to wonder if any female Ranger students will be on jump status for the course. The course has some small drop zones known as postage stamps. Not all students jump i.e. Leg Rangers. But it does ad another amount of possible injuries to the class.
If the standards are kept and they can pass, good for them.
The first woman to pass and graduate…gets to make the sammiches for the rest of the graduating class. 😀 😀 😀 Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I do wish them well though. It will be a tough time for all, men and women alike.
Sammiches are good, but can they cook wings, pizza and fetch beer at the proper pace? *quickly ducking into low crawl*
I am not a big fan of women in combat. I have never kept that a secret. Call me a knuckle dragger or sexist or what ever name comes to mind.
My reason have nothing to do with being challenged by a woman or if a woman is capable of doing the job.
4 billion years of breeding and instinct play a role . Men are hardwired to protect women, It wont change overnight. We have shown time and again that we do not treat women in the military the same as we do men. We treat them better.
That being said I wish the women in the Ranger program the best of luck. I an glad to see the women are held to the same standards as the men.
I’m with you, Enigma. I really don’t have a dog in this fight but I don’t much care whether Donna or Daisy can meet the standards. If they don’t, I don’t give a shit. If they do, I don’t give a shit. How much fairer can I be than that?
“4 Billion years of breeding and instinct play a role. Men are hardwired to protect women…”
Then explain what is happening in the ME, where men would rather have sex with goats and each other than women, and they target women and children for mass murder.
The fact is, there are a lot of factors involved in how women are treated by men in society. It’s not just biology. There are also a lot of factors involved in how strong women are in a society, one of those being HOW STRONG THE MEN IN THAT SOCIETY WANT THE WOMEN TO BE. In the modern world, it would be wise for the men to train their women to be as strong as possible, because a strong woman is far more likely to refuse to cower under a veil than a weak one is. I believe that a time is coming when that will indeed be a factor in whether our society remains free or not. A society, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link.
Fair enough.
Some women, not all some, expect the bar to be lowered so they can get over it.
A male has to be able to lift 70 pounds to do a Job, the female has to be able to lift 50 to do the same job. They bother get pain the same money.
Lets do away with maternity leave. After all all women want is to be treated the same as a man right? WHy should the rest of a workforce have to work harder because someone is pregnant.
Woman receiving food stamps because she has kids? Do away with it. SIngle men do not get them, why should a single woman.
NO, I think women want some of the inequality as long as its on the side of better treatment for them.
I stand by what I said. Our roles are very much determined by our evolution. Men provide and women nurture. IS there room for improvement? ABSOLUTELY
And you need to know that this is coming from a man who was a single parent and raised a child for many years. I saw the difference between how I was treated and how women were treated.
Huh huh. You said “breeding.”
But what did piss me off about the articles that I linked above is that they made a big deal of the fact that statistically the women did better than than the men (15% failure rate for women and 20% for the men) there were 380 men and 19 women, so it’s really an unfair comparison – that, and the women have been training for months for nothing but Ranger School while the men were in their units preparing when they had time.
Say it aint so Jonn, not a stacked deck? OMG who would have thunk it
Also, the women had just completed a several week long school developed to increase the probability of passing. And, we have no idea how many times they were recycled through that school.
One of our Platoon Leaders is in this Ranger class and went through the most recent Pre-Ranger at Benning. He told us some of the females were on their 3rd and 4th attempts through the prep course. You have to give them credit for dealing with the BS in pre-ranger 4 times, but you also can’t tell me that any male soldier would get approval from his unit to spend 4 months at Pre-Ranger prior to starting the actual school. Our Lieutenant was required to do his job up until the day before his Pre-Ranger class and he is only being given one chance at this.
Yep, this is pretty much a maximum drive for at least one to make a headline in the papers and zero to do with equality.
One went thru 3 times.
lol @ riggers failing when their entire job was to train to not fail.
Gotta love the DoD.
Is there a betting pool on who’s going to make it through? My theory is that anybody nearby ought to be able to spot the ones likely to pass.
BOLO for any female West Pointers.
Ring-knockers? DON’T get me started…
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So they made it through RAP week. Good for them, now the hard stuff begins; Patrols. The Infantryman (which is what they are being taught to be at that school) is basically a glorified pack mule, carrying loads in their rucks in this school well in excess of 60 lbs. That does not include their web gear with combat load of magazines, body armor (if an actual deployment, usually weighing an additional 30 lbs) and weapon. FM 3-21.10 states that a soldier can ‘carry up to 30 percent of their bodyweight and still maintain most of their stamina, alertness, and mobility. For an average soldier weighing 160 lbs, this means carrying 48 lbs’. I don’t know you, but most of the women I have met in the army are no where near 160 lbs. If we assume that the average woman weighs 135 lbs in the army, that means they would be allowed to carry a load of 40 lbs. If we are following doctrine, then women would basically be restricted to body armor, their FLC, and a camelbak with a few MRE’s in their rucksack with a change of socks and T-shirts. Carrying the average Infantryman’s ruck and kit would put them closer to 50-75% of their bodyweight. So what we are doing in this course, is making someone who cannot genetically, carry as much weight, compete with men who can. And then on top of that, expect them not to develop injuries at a higher rate then men even though they are going to be encumbered and moving slower than them. Most of the women who will fail, will be because of this, especially when they reach the mountains and have to carry that M240B or SAW up the mountainside with 1000 rounds of ammunition. And I GUARANTEE, GEN Dempsey will make the standards drop because of it. Standards that were kept tough for a reason, to train infantry leaders to fight in (gasp) WARTIME conditions, will be lessened because we’re ‘not being fair to women’. BULLS#!T not everyone gets their ranger tab,not everyone is a special little… Read more »
“They don’t want the playing field leveled, they want it angled just enough so that they can take advantage of it.”
Pretty much sums it up.
As I said in another forum, the federal lawsuit says it all – promotion to command is the issue for them, not national security
I went to Ranger school a few years back as a Recon Marine. Ranger school kicked my ass. It is inconceivable to think a woman could pass the course I went through. I’ll say this, our enemies are smiling at the welcoming of women into the course. But here’s what is being missed among this controversy: Leadership means constantly proving to yourself and others that you can fill the roll competently and earn respect by doing it, not from a deployment or a school. I couldn’t wear my tab in the marines although most everyone knew I had been to Ranger, it didn’t matter. I see a soldier with a tab, yeah it means something, it means he passed Ranger school and that’s all it means. It tells me nothing about what he has done lately or how fluidly and aggressively he brings the fight to the enemy. To relish in the glory of a tab is the first suggestion that someone probably is not moving forward at a pace that provides tangible and observable success to a woman. If Ranger is your ultimatum and “the proudest” moment of your life then more than likely you aren’t a true warrior. Cheers.
*observable success to their unit..not woman, oops.