First women set to graduate from Army’s gueling ranger training school

“Those two women are legit and would have had outstanding careers in the military with or without a tab”, said Sgt. Maj. Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, a Ranger School graduate and veteran infantryman, also is expected to have a leading role after taking over as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October.

Female soldiers make up about 15% of the army.

Those eight female soldiers failed the first patrol phase at Camp Darby on Fort Benning and were offered an opportunity to recycle or repeat the phase.

Completing Ranger School, however, does not necessarily lead to assignments in the Ranger Regiment for its graduates. This presents an obvious hurdle since the 75th Ranger Regiment is “the world’s premier light infantry fighting force, specializing in raids and assault missions deep inside enemy-held territory”.

For comparison’s sake, there are about 2,500 active-duty Navy SEALS.

No, women are still not allowed to serve in combat roles in the U.S. Army.

“This answers whatever questions may still remain about whether women have the strength, the will and the physical courage to become combat leaders”, said Fulton, a former Army captain who now chairs the West Point Board of Visitors, an advisory panel of presidential appointees and members of Congress. It should hardly come as a surprise that the pass rate for the Ranger School hovers around 40 percent.

No, there are no modifications for gender in Ranger School. “But if a woman is in good physical condition, I think the edge that men have can be lessened quite a bit”. What does that mean? It was the first Ranger class in Army history to include female candidates.

In fact, the Pentagon is pushing the U.S. Army and other branches to integrate women into front-line combat units by 2016.

The completion of Ranger School, a grueling two-month course that involves hours of patrolling over mountains and through swamps with heavy packs and little sleep or food, will help prove that at least some women are up to the task.

Does anybody make it through without recycling at all? They didn’t stand out over the male students they just performed well.

We spoke to a local veteran who has graduated from Ranger school, and says he was surprised when he heard the news.

Only a handful of jobs in the Navy and Air Force are now closed to women. The process of opening combat jobs to women was initiated by the U.S. military two years ago. A 2013 Pentagon directive mandated that each service open all jobs to qualified women by the beginning of 2016 or provide an official waiver detailing why certain positions should not be opened to female troops.