Two woman, including one from Connecticut, finished the Army’s grueling Ranger school. Pentagon leaders decided in 2013 to investigate the possibility of opening all military jobs to women.
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The announcement did not spell out which military occupational specialties (MOSs) will be open to women, but directed the DOD to complete studies on the potential for women to serve by September of 2015, the end of the fiscal year, and implement the recommendations by January 2016. Women are serving on Navy submarines and Army artillery units. But in the beginning, “They didn’t look any different really than anyone else”, said Sgt. Instead, they will serve in roles that include infantrymen, military police officers and helicopter pilots – returning to their units with a designation that helps them advance when under consideration for promotion.
Army officials said that they wanted them to be able to focus on what is widely considered to be one of the US military’s most challenging course without the distraction that could come with having their names publicized.
For the first time this year, the US Army opened its Ranger School to women applicants; 381 men and 19 women got approved to undergo the training program, and two women made it to graduation alongside 94 male peers.
No question it’s a big deal that two women will graduate from Army Ranger School on Friday.
“The women who are out there performing the jobs, they are the people who are changing people’s minds”, said Lemmon.
The U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence announced yesterday that 96 soldiers, including two women, met the standards of the Swamp Phase and will graduate from the Ranger Course August 21. The program sits among the most hard training courses in the world. More than 280,000 women were deployed in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. But the toughest jobs remain closed to female soldiers – including infantry, armor and special operations positions. The attrition rate for men is about 25%.
Another female West Point graduate, a major, is still in the mountaineering phase of Ranger School.
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Barno said there has long been resistance to integrating the infantry, but he considers numerous objections to be based on flawed cultural arguments that men and women can not coexist in a battlefield environment. But they reviewed the requirements for the various combat posts to make sure they were directly related to tasks that had to be done as part of the jobs. “Kristen and Shaye have more than earned their right to wear Ranger tabs on their uniforms and I know that their achievement represents a monumental step toward ending gender barriers in the military”, he said in a statement.
