Army Ranger units are an especially closely-knit bunch. Every Ranger stands ready and able to protect their comrades and carry out extraordinarily difficult combat assignments under the most grueling conditions. Close doesn’t count.
Army Ranger units are an especially closely-knit bunch. Every Ranger stands ready and able to protect their comrades and carry out extraordinarily difficult combat assignments under the most grueling conditions. Close doesn’t count.
By the end of this month, two women could reshape the military’s future as the first to complete Ranger School, which was open only to men until this year. The women, both West Point graduates, have met the same standards required of male applicants, including long hours of marches with heavy gear, sleeping in the field and other physical training. If they pass the final stages, they will have earned the right to be respected as full-fledged Rangers.
The Army Rangers is an exclusive club entered through hard work and personal achievement, and their success makes a strong statement about the ability of women to serve in the military’s elite combat units. About 4,000 officers and enlisted soldiers start the humbling course each year, but only about 40 percent graduate. Those who don’t make the cut aren’t bad soldiers. To be a Ranger, however, is to be that extra special person who excels at tasks that humble all but the very best. If this is a glass ceiling, then these two women are poised to shatter it.
“First the naysayers said, ‘They’re not going be able to do this,’ and then they did it, and then they said, ‘They are not going be able do this part,’ and they did it,” says Col. David Fivecoat, commander of the Army’s Airborne and Ranger training brigade.
Despite their accomplishments, it is not clear how these extraordinary women — as yet unidentified by the Army — will be allowed to practice their skills after graduation. Although the Pentagon ended the formal ban on women in combat roles in 2013, the Army and other services have until January to determine how far to include them in combat situations. Never mind that women currently pilot fighter planes, serve on ships in combat areas and perform intelligence gathering and other tasks.
We say these women should ascend as high and as far as their skills will take them. Not only are they achieving the physical requirements, male classmates have given the women strong marks for teammate and leadership skills, and praised them as soldiers they would want to be with in combat. Moreover, passing Ranger training is an unofficial door-opener for obtaining many infantry commands and for leading combat troops.
Many soldiers already accept women in uniform. These women should not be denied an opportunity to serve in combat missions in a Ranger unit.