Two female soldiers earn elite Ranger tabs
Debate reopens in U.S. over women in combat as army strives to adapt
The first female soldiers to complete the U.S. army’s rigorous Ranger School graduated Friday, capping their history-making week and putting a spotlight on the debate over women in combat.
At a ceremony at Fort Benning, First Lt. Shaye Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest graduated alongside 94 male soldiers.
The women drew attention for finishing the nine-week program designed to test young soldiers’ leadership abilities, as the Pentagon approaches decisions on opening all combat positions to women who meet military standards.
Their success casts new attention on the obstacles that remain to women who aspire to join allmale combat units.
Although Haver and Griest are now Ranger-qualified, no women are eligible for the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, although officials say it is among special operations units likely to be opened to women eventually.
Griest, 26, is a military police officer and has served one tour in Afghanistan. Haver, 25, is a pilot of Apache helicopters. Both are graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Of 19 women who began the Ranger course, Haver and Griest are the only two to finish so far.
Addressing the graduates, Maj. Gen. Scott Miller said no one should doubt that all 96 graduates met Ranger standards, regardless of their sex, and he congratulated them on proving their mettle.
The army opened Ranger School to women for the first time this year as service leaders weighed opening more combat jobs to women. How far the military is willing to go toward ending restrictions on women will be evident soon.
Gen. Mark Milley, the army’s new chief of staff, said he appreciated the importance of the pioneering performance of Haver and Griest.
“It’s a really big deal” for them and for the army, he said.
Milley said he has not decided whether to recommend that all army positions be opened to women. Yet “I believe the army can adapt,” he said. “It has and will continue to adapt.”
Griest said she hopes her success shows that women “can deal with the same stresses and training that men can.”
But James Lechner, a retired army lieutenant-colonel, said he questions whether the Ranger course adequately tested the female candidates under combat-simulated conditions and whether it makes sense to open all combat units to women.
Janine Davidson, a defence policy analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former air force cargo plane pilot, said the success of Griest and Haver and the prospect of the army fully integrating women into its ground combat force is “policy catching up with reality,” given the extensive combat experience women had in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also reflects generational change, she said, which she has heard in conversations with high school students.
Rangers call themselves “masters of special light infantry operations” such as seizing key terrain and infiltrating hostile territory by land, sea or air.
Most of those who enter Ranger School fail to graduate. From 2010 to 2014, 58 per cent of candidates washed out — most of those within the first four days.