Griest, 26, is a military police officer from Orange, Connecticut, a defense official said.
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The U.S. military is now considering plans to end the longstanding ban on women serving in combat roles, with final decisions coming later this year. “If they can meet the standards”, she said about the Rangers’ two newest graduates, “I don’t see why anyone would prevent it”.
Before now, only males were allowed to go through the physically and mentally daunting Ranger School.
Soldiers who have earned Ranger Tabs, male or female, are not automatically part of the regiment, which has its own requirements and assessment process.
The first two women to graduate from the U.S. Army’s Ranger School shared their experiences from training during a press panel Thursday in Fort Benning, Georgia.
Janowski went on to say he would trust her with his life.
The Army has already opened its combat engineer and field artillery military occupational specialties to women. He said he was highly impressed by what both women were able to accomplish.
Haver, who flies an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter in Fort Carson’s 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, said she didn’t think about taking the tough course until the Army proposed opening it to women in November.
Among the rumors faced by leaders of the Ranger School this week were that the students in the latest course had been given more sleep than usual, that President Obama planned to attend Friday’s graduation ceremony and that Miller had accompanied the candidates on training patrols.
Four months of torture-all while ignoring the chorus of naysayers calling the admission of women a mistake-and Haver has made history: she is one of the first two women to ever finish Ranger School.
“I was thinking really of future generations of women that I would like them to have that opportunity so I had that pressure on myself”, Griest said. “We didn’t come here with a chip on our shoulder”.
Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver are the first female soldiers to graduate from the school for the special operations unit.
Like their brothers-in-arms, the women all are volunteers.
Major Curtis H. Arnold Jr. told ABC News as he oversaw the first phase of Ranger School at Fort Benning in Georgia.
In the wake of Panetta’s initial announcement, some critics anxious that the armed forces would lower standards for service to give women a fair shot. “I was the 320 gunner [a grenade launcher], so I had a lot of weight on me and I was struggling”.
Hanger called the women “absolutely physical studs”. “They do not quit and they do not complain”. “So you’ve got to put out 110 percent”.
For example, women found themselves at the sides of special US forces during night raids in Afghanistan, and were tasked with establishing contact with Afghan women who would never have spoken to men. During the last of their three attempts, 364 soldiers started and only 96 finished.
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But the Center for Military Readiness, for one, said on its website it “takes issue with Obama Defense Department leaders and “politicians in uniform” who “are putting gender politics above national security and the best interests of both women and men in the military”. And they don’t get much chance to rest or refuel. It’s thought-about the Military’s most bodily hard course. “If you want to do it, don’t let anything stand in your way”, says Ben Petet, former neighbor.
