First woman grads of Army Ranger School: Texas Apache pilot, Connecticut MP

The women said they don’t want special treatment.

“The feedback I’ve gotten with these women is how incredibly prepared they are”, Retiring Army Chief of Staff Gen Raymond T Odierno told the Washington Post.

Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the department has opened 111,000 positions to women since rescinding the gender ban previous year and is poised to add thousands more jobs in the coming months.

Completing Ranger School, however, does not necessarily lead to assignments in the Ranger Regiment for its graduates.

The Army had faced resistance to allowing women to serve in combat units, but since such experience is a factor in promotions and job advancement in the military, women have had greater difficulty than men in moving up to the top ranks, officials have said. He said he also served as a career Army aviator who flew Apaches.

At a town hall meeting at Winthrop University in South Carolina, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was unequivocal in his support of women serving in combat roles.

This is the first year women attended the training after President Barack Obama ordered the military to accept women in combat roles by 2016.

What does graduating from Ranger school mean for Griest and Haver? Senior Army officials have insisted that is not the case, and opened Ranger School to reporters for a few days during each phase to underscore the point and let Ranger instructors and others involved in their evaluation speak.

As photographers took pictures and video of the women soldiers training, the Army asked that names on the uniforms and ruck sacks not be shown and that females soldiers be pictured with male students.

All services have made it clear that they will not lower and standards so women can qualify for these demanding jobs, but the services must make their recommendations to defense secretary Ash Carter this fall.

Another female West Point graduate, a major, is still in the mountaineering phase of Ranger School.

But no matter where the policy decisions go now, two women have succeeded in uncharted territory and earned a Ranger tab.

The 75th Ranger Regiment has four battalions: two located in Fort Benning, Ga., one in Fort Lewis, Wash., and one in Hunter Army Airfield, Ga. If services decide on different standards, it’ll be up to individual branches to defend the discrepancies for jobs with similar requirements, like Marine Corps and Army infantry billets.

And in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said, women – even if theoretically excluded from infantry and artillery positions, as well as armored units – came under direct enemy fire. “I think it’s something that we should all be really proud of”. Now, we know the answer: some of them sure can.