Posted on 05/16/2012 9:12:40 PM PDT by Publius804
WASHINGTON — Army leaders have begun to study the prospect of sending female soldiers to the service's prestigious Ranger school — another step in the effort to broaden opportunities for women in the military.
Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, said Wednesday that he's asked senior commanders to provide him with recommendations and a plan this summer. And while he stressed that no decisions have been made, he suggested that Ranger school may be a logical next step for women as they move into more jobs closer to the combat lines.
"If we determine that we're going to allow women to go in the infantry and be successful, they are probably at some time going to have to go through Ranger school," Odierno told reporters. "If we decide to do this, we want the women to be successful."
According to Odierno, about 90 percent of senior Army infantry officers have gone to the school and are qualified as Rangers. Allowing women to go to Ranger school, he said, would allow them to be competitive with their male counterparts as they move through the ranks.
Going to Ranger school, however, does not automatically mean women would be allowed to serve in one of the Army's three elite Ranger battalions, which are Army special operations forces. In fact, many male soldiers who wear the coveted Ranger tab on their uniforms never actually serve in one of the three battalions.
Currently, women are not allowed to serve in special operations, infantry or armor forces, which are considered the most dangerous combat jobs. They are, however, allowed to serve in a number of support jobs such as medics, military police and intelligence officers that are sometimes attached to combat brigades.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
First, they should match the men in every score, number, measure, exercise, distance, weight and time. There should be no fudging the standards down for women.
Second, why would a woman want to do this?
Don’t worry they will fudge it. /sarc
..with a washout rate of maybe 60% now..this don’t make any sense
unless Odumbo wants to lower standards.....that he is quite accustomed to......
Your premise is the correct one. Israel incorporated women into combat-ready units only because they had to as a matter of preparedness and national survival.
We’re not there yet.
Maybe they could substitute multiple choice tests for a few of the ruck marches.
BOHICA
This is just the continual softening of the US Military.
They will tell us that they won’t lower the standards of the Rangers but lowering the standards will be the end result. Otherwise the cries of unfairness will start to reverberate throughout the halls of congress. I suffered through women being forced on the Navy fleet and saw the results of PC firsthand. We are friggin doomed.
You forgot hand-to-hand combat. They'd have to fight men.
We’re a huge nation of 320 million souls. I can’t imagine a situation where we’d need to use females in those roles. I’d rather see a foreign legion before that.
That’s negatory
This will only work if they completely wussify Ranger School. They will have to lower the standards so much just for the women to pass the physical requirments it would be a joke. Can’t wait to see how they handle the 200’ night rappel. Ranger stakes would be interesting.
This will only work if they completely wussify Ranger School. They will have to lower the standards so much just for the women to pass the physical requirments it would be a joke. Can’t wait to see how they handle the 200’ night rappel. Ranger stakes would be interesting.
Now that the sodomites and lesbians are officially ordained, the Pentagon will never pass up an opportunity to direct the services towards humanist social alchemy and social engineering.
The Ranger sub-culture that ensures victory demands totalitarian mental and physical harshness to overcome their chaotic, barbaric, and brittle environments. The question is not whether women can meet some newly fabricated minimum set of qualifications, but whether they can join the few exceeding the expectations of accomplished combat infantrymen.
My son is a former Marine and my war was with the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam. There will be a terrible price paid. We both discourage anyone who asks about joining the military. Victory and the warrior ethic are no longer important values.
Whoever said Leftists or women are sane?
RLTW.
What pathetic DISGRACE.
There's another thing at work here that may have missed. The champions of opening up the Rangers to women have coached this in terms of providing jobs. Ah, hello Army brass — the Rangers aren't a jobs program. The Rangers are the tip of the spear; they are combat infantry recon teams. They are given risky combat jobs and there is no place for anyone who cannot do what the job demands. Waivers don't get it done when the bullets and rockets are flying.
The other dirty secret that no one speaks is this: exactly WHO are those championing Ranger School for women? I'll guarantee you that zero enlisted women want to go to Ranger School, but there are a certain number of women officers who want this. Why? Because the Ranger tab is seen as a fast track to promotion in the PC and feminized Army. The problem with this reasoning is the Ranger tab guarantees very dangerous assignments. Nothing interferes with a general officer's career like premature death on a risky mission in combat.
Odierno has got to know the right answer here. He must be humoring those OBot Obama appointees above him.
There isn't one. The purpose of girl-Rangers, girl-SEALS, girl-mariners, and girl-aviators isn't the protection of the country. There's nothing any of them does—and this also applies to female cops or Guardsmen—that couldn't be done better and with less compromise to their unit by lots of males who would be glad to take the job. Coed protective services exist so some women can feel they have a life. They don't think they do, because they have no respect for . . . women. This applies to some—but certainly not all—females in the service. It applies mostly to civilian females—especially politicians—who are burned up over the idea that men can do things that women can't. It doesn't appease them that women can do things that men can't. Their self-loathing doesn't allow for that.
But delusion makes bad policy. Breaking things and killing people on an industrial scale is a male thing, and that's that. As far as I know, both the Israelis and the Russians gave up the girls-in-combat thing long ago, because it was a disaster.
Just ask her fan club. I'll bet they vote for her. /sarc
It’s a test of leadership and endurance more than anything else. Not much hand to hand combat.
I would disagree with this statement. Women in combat roles in Israel is, and always has been, a result of leftist political ideology except perhaps for the briefest of periods. After 1948 women were removed from any combat roles based on studies done of the effectiveness of inclusion in war. In 2000, the Equality amendment to the Military Service law stated that the right of women to serve in any role in the IDF is equal to the right of men. There was no pressing logistical need to do so.
Any society that sent its women into combat would have historically died-out.
Because it takes nine months for a woman to bear a child, with half of such children growing to be warriors.
While it only takes one man to impregnate an entire tribe of women.
Therefore any tribe that lacked the genetic, inborn distaste of sending its women into battle, would have died out in a very few generations at most because of the declining birthrate brought about by having fewer mothers.
Meanwhile, those tribes that had genes that influenced a dislike of sending women to war, would have continued to exist.
It drives me crazy to see people trying to rationalize their inborn, genetic, dislike of sending women into combat—you cannot rationalize not sending them. But you can simply understand that it is against human nature and so against the happiness and strength of a society.
Meanwhile I say men should not joint the armed forces in protest.
Let the armed forces be peopled only by women and foolish men who swallow the Kool-Aid about women’s equality.
Yes, I know...
There's a famous quote that goes something like this.
"Men letting their wives and daughters fight their nation's wars will soon have neither. "
The way things are going, we are not too far away from ‘there’——the commie Pres is doing his best to destroy this country and this is just another one of the ‘destroyers’-—the top ‘brass asses’ are the worst of all as they should know better but don’t give a sh-t just to keep their fat pensions——
I heartily agree-—I enlisted and served 5 yrs in WW2 and would not ever enlist today with what is happening to our military——there are many good men in it but this allowing women ((potential mothers) to serve in combat is a stupid, disaster for our nations future as it is softening the killer instinct that is needed in the miltary warrior—I spit on all brass who choose to be political garbage and would allow this nation to be doomed if a real war breaks out (not that some of the fat assed men around would be worth anything in a time of trouble)
Pure insanity. Is the military a social program or the protector of our nation? <<
and there u have it!...The answer before the right question!
Any woman that believes that she has what it takes to be a REAL Ranger or Seal needs to be knocked on their ass ... and it wouldn’t take a real Ranger or Seal to do it
Penis envy.
The ONLY thing that would do is generate a “dumbing down” of the Rangers for the sake of political correctness.
Our armed forces are being ruined for the sake of politicians’ social experiments.
In short, it’s pure BS.
Just because a woman can run, swim and cycle under her own weight in no way means she’s a candidate for Ranger School. The biggest physical requirement is the ability to hump a monstrous ruck. Mine weighted over 70lbs and I only weighed 130lbs at the time.
And, OF COURSE they’ll fudge the standards and tests. That’s what the Army always does with women in combat roles or inter-sex training.
You ain’t far from the truth, brother.
TV and Hollyweird has already indoctrinatd too many Americans who’ve never served and have never had to carry a woman’s load.
10,000 women will test today, all will be GIVEN the Green Beret....
Yep. Soon you will have replies that so and so’s daughter joined the Army and did such and such and beat ALL the men blah blah blah.
Nope, nope, and nope.
I heard our idiotic COC speaking to grads at a female college- telling them they could all be combatant commanders-and I almost threw up.
What the HELL? Very few women can do their job in the military. Even if they are good at their job. My friend is deploying to AFG in a few months- surprise- and she just gained custody of her kids. Because she will be training and gone so much before the deployment, she has to get a full time nanny to live with her kids. And then her ex will probably get full custody back while she deploys. She is a mess right now.
I respect her service, but wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.
And everybody who has served in Combat Arms or supporting Combat Arms knows that very few females Soldiers can actually meet standards- especially over a long time, as they have kids, etc.
It’s so dangerous that our culture believes that the 5’5”, 135 lb physically fit female Soldier can take on the 5’7” 165 lb physically fit male Soldier. Yeah, sure she can. Just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer beat up all those vampires.
And I am a former female Soldier, and I have deployed. I am married to a current Active Duty Soldier for 20 plus years.
Thank you, all female vets and currently serving female Soldiers. But please don’t take up the slots at Ranger school.
This makes sense to me if there are sensitive female roles for which Ranger-level training is necessary or desirable. I could imagine having a trained native Arabic or Farsi speaking woman or two of Middle Eastern descent could be handy on a mission here or there.
That’s not what I’m hearing them talk about—and talking about what I’m referring to may not be a good idea either.
The obvious solution is to de-emphasize Ranger training as a criteria for promotion to field grade. If 90 percent of the officers above a certain rank have undergone Ranger training, then this is an indication to me that the Ranger ‘school’ is too large and training too many officers who will never serve with or command Rangers.
You know that ain’t gonna happen. They will either lower the requirements or have special provisions for the manly women.
I’m not a “spring chicken” any longer but I’ll bet I can do more physical lifting than any female that graduates from the new “sissy” ranger camp that will be established to ensure the women can pass the test.
I just can’t help but wonder how many male troops have been killed simply due to the lack of physical (and emotional) strength of women in combat roles and their inability to actually “fight like a man.”
The sad fact is that the truth will never be known.
The Army lowered standards at Airborne School so that more women could pass. I got my wings in November '76, and the black hats were ordered to lay off the women. Young officers like myself were singled out for extra pushups during Ground Week.
It was no big thing...only lasted 3 weeks total.
About a third of my ROTC class made it through Ranger School. They were all excellent athletes, and knew small unit infantry tactics through and through.
If the Army can find a woman that can meet the current standards, so be it. Color me very skeptical that any woman can survive Ranger School in its current form.
BTW ... From one vet to another ... Thank you for your service
assuming there are some gals that could hack it, are they going to have to register for the draft as well?
until that happens, they’ll never be “equal”.
The Army isn’t the only one who fudges stats and forces women who arent qualified through. I was in the Navy while the brass were shoving through unqualified aviators through carrier quals. It was an unmitigated disaster and the brass knew it but they were intent on seeing the first women to qualify for carrier landings out in the fleet. The political brass does not care about readiness. You only have to look as far as women serving on subs. It’s the worst idea out there but it is happening.
I would never, EVER serve in today’s military. And, god willing, neither will any of my kids.
Kara Hultgren.
Repeatedly failed qualifications, but was pushed forward and onto carriers and into an F-14. She flamed an engine on approach, over-corrected and killed herself and damn near killed her back-seater.
The Navy went through the unprecedented task of recovering the aircraft, trying to blame the aircraft, and then rigging the analysis when it all pointed to pilot error.
Already, two or three of the first female submariners have been charged with fraud.
Myself, I never finished a co-ed march where I wasn’t carrying some female soldier’s gear, helmet and even her rifle. Females can make a real contribution, but not through lowered standards.
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