So the “Great Experiment” will run again, in a new form at a new place. Apparently Big Army plans on allowing females to take a crack at Ranger School sometime after January. Ranger School is widely acknowledged to be one of the most difficult and physically demanding courses in existence (it’s only marginally more difficult than the bouncer FTO program at Nancy’s Squat’n’Gobble). Roughly 50% of attendees graduate from the 2 month course.
Unless this process moves with the same sort of alacrity that the camouflage improvement program did, we should see some sort of decision about an integrated Ranger School in January, with the first course running Spring 2015. Female volunteers in the ranks of specialist through major will be able to apply, but must first pass the physical qualifications and prerequisites for attending the course, and will be required to attend the ANG Ranger Training and Assessment Course at Ft. Benning before beginning the class.
Do you even Liberty?
Female Soldiers who complete Ranger School successfully will be awarded and authorized to wear the Ranger tab, but will not receive the Ranger skill identifier, nor will they go to a Ranger coded unit. Those in the grade of staff sergeant through master sergeant, CWO 2 and 3 and 1st lieutenant through major will be allowed to volunteer to serve as observers at the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade (not: this would not be an instructor billet).
The 2 main questions here, of course, are 1) will requirements and performance standards remain the same (Big Army says they will) and 2) is the juice worth the squeeze? Seriously, take out any posturing or infantry-centric “girls have cooties” and let’s look at it – is this going to legitimately benefit the Army in some capacity downrange when it comes to killing people and breaking all their shit? Or is this just a pseudo-political exercise in fraud waste and abuse?
Feel free to opine, but let’s try to have an intelligent discussion about it. Set aside any allegations of misogyny and don’t spew any bullshit that would dishonor the memory of women like Capt. Jennifer Moreno and Lt. Ashley White. This shouldn’t be about equality or promotion points or movies like GI Jane – it should come down to whether or not Ranger qualified females will help get it done outside the wire.
You can read the original story from last Friday on the Army Times website.
Discuss.
I’ve worn many different hats and uniforms in the military since 1999 and I’ve been on both sides of the male/female eqaulity issue. As far as Ranger School, unless you are in a Ranger unit, you shouldn’t go to the school. Currently it is just another leadership course that looks good on your ERB. For combat specific MOSes and softer combat oriented MOSes, the Big Army should develop a similiar course that is open to the entire army as a whole. Ranger School should be for Rangers.
There are plenty of males that are tabbed that are not, and have never been assigned to a Ranger billet.Why should it be different for women?
Dan.keeler, you clearly didn’t understand or absorb my post. You just couldn’t resist putting sex back into the issue, which is 90% of the military’s problem. Here I will dumb it down for you. Males or females should not go to Ranger School unless they are going to be in a Ranger Battalion. Period. I don’t give a shit about women in the military or in combat roles. I think its great, but since segregation of men and women isn’t the answer, the standards should be the same acroos the board. That’s what the real discussion should be. If men can’t make the standard, they don’t go. Women should have to meet the same standard.
I know a female WI ARNG officer, whom I deployed with, that on 24 hours notice took on Sapper school. She tabbed. She is the exception when it comes to females with enough mental and physical drive to achieve and exceed the standard. She would probably wupp Ranger School’s ass. This is someone I know and respect, how many more like her are out there?
That being said, if you aren’t going to let them serve in the combat roles you are training them for, why insult them with the opportunity to train for a combat situation they never get the chance to be a part of. I don’t give a shit about race, religion, gender, or age, if you can do the job what do I have to complain about.
Fuck it. I say we ban all women from military service.
It’ll fix three ‘major issues’
1. Almost entirely eliminate sexual harassment and assault.
2. Improve the overall fitness of the military.
3. Reduce the size of the military by 15% in one fell swoop.
Get real. You obviously need some remedial training. You realize the Army has male on male harassment/assault/violence?? Have you seen some of the males’ physique? You say we’re only 15% of the Army??? Well that’s chump change, get rid of the individuals like you… who’s your 1SG???
No doesn’r matter. Females in the military have compromised the Warrior ethos. Instead of being indoctrinated by the leftists that females can do anything a man does, you need to wake up and smell the nail polish. You are not a man. You have a role to play in American society. It is not that of a soldier, sailor, airmen or Marine.
Odd, the draft is still in place for males requiring registration. I never hear of you women beseeching your fedgov officials to force draft registration upon your sex. Why is that ?
Here, her, again! Well said on both accounts. Remedial training; Who’s his Top, indeed? Why you planning on having the commies currently running DC indoctrinate the common sense out of him? There you have the problem with the whole nation, society and culture that’s gotten us to this point where political correctness, excuses and sliding scales that are used to account for the lack of efficacy, effectiveness and ability by every special interest group with a perverted agenda have weakened us almost to our knees as a people.
Men acting like women, women acting like men and the rest of us who are still normal American men and women are not only supposed to allow it or act as if it’s normal, Hell, now we’re supposed to embrace and enthusiastically promote it when it makes absolutely no good common sense at all and destroys our culture. I thank the Lord everyday that my father was a man and my mother a women; they were both real good at what they did.
You can dress a woman up like a soldier, or a cop for that matter, all you want but that’s not going to make her a warrior. Warriors are supposed to be men, fighting men, and nurses are supposed to be women, each has their roles, their strengths and weaknesses, that’s just the way God and nature intended it and it was a beautiful thing when everyone in this country realized it.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid that the commies are passing out, it’s spoiled.
Draft? Hmmm must mean selective service. I damn sure wasn’t drafted. And if a woman can pass an unaltered test then I say more power to her. And do you have your ranger tab. You idiots make men and soldiers look bad. We are not all knuckle dragging neanderthals. And the warrior ethos is still alive and well in soldiers. Maybe you should meet a few before spouting you bs out your pie hole.
Baca….Rangerette tabs….that’s what’s coming. And unlike your millenial ass, I’m not about this “female equality” crap. They ARE NOT equal. So, smart, tough guy….the best argument you can make is to lace your response with name-calling, “idiots”, “knuckle dragging neanderthals”. Oh, and your quite intellectual remark that I “should meet a few (soldiers) before spouting you bs out your pie hole”. Quite an intelligent argument you present their smart guy.
Guess you don’t support my challenge of a provisional infantry battalion of nothing but your beloved females in the hills of Afghanistan, do you ?
You don’t answer my question regarding the draft, do you ? Typical liberal….you can’t make an intelligent, factual argument other than ad hominem attacks with senseless comments.
Liberal. Nope. And a full battalion is as simple as you are. Lets set them up to fail. Be like sending a battalion of clerks. No I don’t wear a Ranger tab. And I don’t support altered requirements. But have plenty of friends who have been there. And I missed this war because of injury and I feel supremely guilty about it. Yes I served my country. I have seen females that could do it. The requirements now are a joke anyway. But we still have one of the best fighting forces in the world.
Why did my comment get deleted???
Agreed. They have no place in the military. This “women’s equality”shit is one very big reason behind the demise of the family unit.
Maybe Big Army should create an entire provisional battalion of them as female infantry. Drop them into the hills of Afghanistan for 30 days and OPORD their asses “seek and destroy”. No male support. No male nothing except as evaluators. And then no touchy-feely male millenials evaluating.
We’ll see how well they meet mission standards.
This is the crap we’re being fed from the Usurper-in-Chief and his entourage of communists. Fags, females and failures.
Here, here!
Not to bring another service into it but the Marines have allowed women to attempt the Infantry Officers Course for a few years now. Only one made it through the first day only to be dropped for injuries within the next week or two. I predict we’ll see similar results if Ranger School doesn’t have its standards touched.
Not in the Army brother…we will lower the standards. Unfortunately.
Most females in the army think this absurd, when are the femonazi’s going to get it? Men and women are different. It’s not about equal opportunity, it’s about biology. It women were just as capable on the battlefield then you would have seen female armies in the time of ancient summeria and etc. I am sure there are some badass chicks out there who could go to school but let’s be honest, 99.9% would not be able to under the current standards.
We all know what affirmative action does to institutions/schools in the army, look at airborne school and west point for examples, they both suck now, standards went way down after women were allowed to attend. Becuase almost no women will be able to pass school as it is now, standards will be dropped in order to get females to pass mark my words.
It’s shit like this that makes us the laughing stock of our enemies, It’s funny how the feminist who push for the crap don’t even want to go themselves, they just like the idea of other women going? Why cant the army just be worried about protecting the nation in the best way possible and not politics? Complete bullshit, so glad I am no longer in our Army, good luck in your next war America.
To answer the question of how it would benefit the force down the road –
It certainly cannot hurt. Making the assumption that the women that attend the course do so under existing standards, and graduate in good standing – how could taking those leadership skills back to their respective units be a bad thing? Since the women in our Army serve almost exclusively in CS and CSS roles, I think that having a little bit of an infantry leadership mentality in those ranks would be a good thing.
Developing leadership skills in our ranks, regardless of branch, gender etc. is always something that we should be striving to do, and do to the best of our ability. Ranger school is a leadership school – not a tactical one, and those skill sets are something that all of our NCOs and Officers should have access to.
I agree with 11Bangerang. Although I think that they should be able to deploy with Ranger coded units and have the skill identifier. Additionally, I think it would be better to have the first female Rangers deployed to all female Ranger units. People use Israel as a case study to show that men and women can serve effectively in combat capacities, however that is a way of life for them. Our society’s gender culture is totally different, and while I believe it requires an attitude adjustment, forcing it in the military isn’t the best way to go. Give it a few years of all male and all female units doing joint ops outside the wire and I believe the swinging dicks with tits will earn their place and the respect of their male peers, and the gradual integration of men and women together in combat would be much smoother and with far fewer problems.
What’s the point? Is there such a shortage of available, qualified males that we even have to consider the possibility of this train wreck on the horizon? Why do we continually act as though this is a legitimate pursuit? This is stupidity at it’s best.
Fine, if they meet the standards. But let’s not BS here, the goal is to get women officers a tab so they can get promotions. And I always hear about these crossfit princesses that could kick most men’s asses… but I’ve yet to see that happen during the actual challenge. At this time the US military is the premiere military in the world IN THE WHOLE, which means ACROSS THE SPECTRUM. I’m sure they can absorb a number of no goes without too many disasters. My worry is this is a political problem. I’m too old to serve and my sons are in their thirties… It won’t affect me directly. But let’s not forget what happened in Korea.
A bunch of Vaginas were formed up into Task Force Smith with disastrous results. The accounts from TFS were practically glowing on the quality of the NKA, when in fact anyone who’s been to the first battle sight could tell you the NKA drove down the road, fired a few rounds and the UN “infantry” who watched them drive by with hardly firing a shot and the only real resistance they received was from an Artillery battery (made up of and led by WW II vets) with a few guns and something like 7 rounds per gun. A few men showed some balls (not so oddly almost all were WW II vets)… but this is the rub for me. Those few men couldn’t make up for a lack of testicles and it would have been kinder to shoot those brave men in the head before they disembarked in Pusan. We can subjectively cheat the standards all we want to gain a known result… but War is very objective. [as an aside many of us tender young soldiers in the 60s and 70s were turned into track stars by the survivors of TFS. Those survivors were a terribly unsympathetic brotherhood]
I’m of the mind that with first contact this will all sort itself out anyways. But it’s possible by that time the cancer will have moved upwards and to be a man amongst the testicularly challenged during that first contact creates an unsafe work site for men. And one thing I’ve seen with lowered standards, it will be across the board, not just a few women, the lowered standards and expectations will be apply for everyone but particularly officers. I know I’m about to be attacked by those who insist, “They are going to keep the standards, you’re just an old man who’s not received proper indoctrination”. My faith in maintaining the standards is low, this is a political decision and it had nothing to do with “qualified”.
I’ve seen this effort underway since the late 1980s and that in itself has left a bitter taste. The efforts were always derailed by war/conflict. I remember Representative Patricia Schroeder pushing this beginning in the late 80s and then came Desert Storm. Her assertion that war was going to be pushbutton and mechanized and it was no longer a big deal to have physical standards. In a way DS gave her the war she wanted… but it turned out physical standards in a possible chemical warfare environment were important and she STFU for a brief time. Next came Somalia. At the time her Coven had reoriented to focus on women officers and were pushing hard to get women in SF and Ranger/Airborne units. What happened on the streets of Mogadishu made her and her Coven reduce their rhetoric but push for “trials”. I was all for this. In fact I’d been saying for years that we needed to stand up an all female infantry Bn and take the best from that into SF qualification. They couldn’t even find anyone good enough to qualify for the trials, let alone make it to an SF training unit. Nest came GI Jane, and a ton of assumptions. By 12 Sept 2001 they were about to open up every unit to women… but war once again put that in the dumpster. It’s interesting to note that those who push the hardest for women in combat units always shut up when a good test is on the horizon. As the war wound down in Iraq there was suddenly a huge interest in getting woman officers in charge of combat units. That was purely for promotion purposes. Hard to make a woman Chairman of the JCS if she spent all of the WOT as the XO in the 199th underground PT Belt Repair BN.
All that said, I get it, it’s going to happen, men have held down women and it needs to end, or so I’m told (Ray Rice and the myth of the female infantrymen… sounds like a good book). I’ll leave you with this and retire. We’ve not faced a core competitor since Vietnam. As long as that remains true we can’t get into too much trouble. When I look down the road I see a declining country with a declining military. You will be the one to reap the benefits and the whirlwind from these decisions, not me.
If a soldier can meet the requirements and surpass the standard then why can’t that swinging dick have tits? Women make up about 50% of the population and I’ve personally known some that kick more ass then a lot of Joes.