Women Don't Belong in Ranger School

Wall Street Journal ^ | 6-12-12 | Stephen Kilcullen

[kingattax]

The United States Army is debating whether to admit women to Ranger School, its elite training program for young combat leaders.

Proponents argue this is to remove a final impediment to the careers of Army women. But the move would erode the unique Ranger ethos and culture—not to mention the program's rigorous physical requirements—harming its core mission of cultivating leaders willing to sacrifice everything for our nation.

The Army's 75th Ranger Regiment traces its roots back to World War II, when it won acclaim for penetrating deep behind Japanese lines. Founded in 1950, Ranger School teaches combat soldiers small-unit tactics and leadership under extreme duress. It pushes men harder than any other program in the Army's curriculum.

Competition to attend the course is fierce, with about 4,000 men eligible to attend each year. Only about half graduate. Of those, only 20% make it through without having to retake various phases.

For decades, completion of Ranger School has been the best indicator for determining which young men can handle the enormous responsibility of combat leadership

[Future Snake Eater]

"Two Weeks in Hell": a 9-part series on YouTube that follows a class through SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection).

Now, SFAS is NOT Ranger School. Two totally different animals. Here is a similar documentary on Ranger School. It's a tough school; I can't imagine any women (held to the same standards as men) making it through, though a few probably could.

Ultimately, so few women will graduate that the behind-the-scenes pressure to pass more women will mount--pressure from politicians and field grade/flag officers alike, make no mistake. It's inevitable...this is a bell that cannot be un-rung.

[Travis McGee]

Amen, read my last reply.

[SkyDancer]

I come from a family who's dad was a Marine pilot in Vietnam. My uncle was a chopper pilot there too. I have two brothers who were in Iraq, one a chopper pilot the other a weapons officer. My mom was a military brat. My family taught me wood craft where at the age of thirteen I was dropped off in the forest with just the basics and had to survive for three days. Later I joined the Marine reserve and went through boot camp. I did everything the guys did. I came home, became an FAA certified pilot flying jets. I now work in Australia flying planes into the outback where any Marine pilot would crap his or her pants landing on the strips I do. Don't tell me I don't know what Ranger or infantry combat is like. I can handle any weapon from a .45 up to a .300mag rifle. I own my own varmint rifle, a 22-250 that I sighted out to 500 yards to knock off prarie dogs at 600 yards. I shoot elk across a 300 yard canyon and help backpack it home. I'll go up against any Marine Recon anytime anywhere anyplace. And I'm only 5'6 and weigh in at 110lbs.

Have a nice day

Regards, Janey

[Secret Agent Man]

Women don’t belong in combat.

Its bad enough men have to be in combat.

[Arrowhead1952]

I spent almost 40 years in the Army National Guard and sent two of the toughest SOBs in my section / platoon to Ranger school. They both ran marathons on a regular basis, maxed the pushups and situps, and both flunked Ranger school. It is NOT easy. Their biggest problem was negotiating walls and other vertical barriers.

I’ll say this much for women in the military. I knew two female helicopter pilots who grew up in the Huey choppers and as a team won the US Army precision flying competition when the Blackhacks came into the Army inventory. We watched them at the Henson Mountain Helicopter Range on Ft Hood, and if you took your eyes off them, you’d probably not see them again until they were flying away.

[SkyDancer]

prarie = prairie

[Sigurdrifta]

Don’t waste your time writing to these types (his screen name pretty much tells me all I need to know).

My son is a fighter pilot (wizzo), USAF. They have quite a few women pilots and wizzo’s. The females seem to make good wizzo’s (something to do with less machismo and more deliberate behavior (or brains) I suspect). A lot of these guys don’t seem to realize (when was the last time we engaged in serious air-to-air dogfights?) that in this day the danger is not such combat with enemy planes, but much more the DOD lawyers hanging over you if you hit the wrong target (not to mention CNN reporters!).

I do laugh, however, when I am told that being a pilot of that type is not very strenuous. Jeremy Clarkson did a good special on F-15E’s, where at the end he points out that he was more tired than anything else he had ever done (which is a lot, if you watch his show).

My daughter is a SSGT, USMC. Graduated from Parris Island (after a Bachelor’s and two Master’s degrees). I wonder if any of these macho guys could be a Lioness in Iraq or Afghanistan, Hmmmmm?

Anyway, the joke here is that if the two of them go into a bar and have a “problem”, it will be my daughter who gets my son out of the “problem”, not the other way around.

[JerseyDvl]

Now THAT is hot! Seriously, I admire a great many things about you based upon that one post and tenacity is certainly one of them.
I’ll bet you can really spin a yarn based upon life experiences like those. Do you ever write about your life?

[Travis McGee]

Obviously, if you can give birth to a baby (watermelon), you are physically qualified to be in the first wave hitting the beach in the next Normandy or Iwo Jima.

I swear, snake eater, that most Americans are so brainwashed by TV and movies, that they really believe 120# chick cops (or soldiers) can deftly karate-kick 300# bikers to the ground.

This separation from reality is going to cost us dearly, the next time we get a “real” war off to a bad start, such as Korea 1950. This time, with women in the mix, to add to the panic of mass retreat.

But the PC feminist fantasists will simply exclaim that, “That kind of war is passe. It will never happen like that again. We’ll do it all with drones and lasers.”

We are going to pay the price for accepting fantasy as reality, before the next butcher’s bill must be paid again in blood.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah, true. Guys seem to have to want to take of of us when the going gets tough and that takes away their ability to do their job. Sad but true.

[Chickensoup]

I discovered how costly it was to hire women into men’s jobs.

Women get into man’s job, like cop or heavy equipment operator.

Within a short period of time most women are flagging traffic or sitting at a desk inside.

Men, when injured or unwell, used to rotate into the easy jobs like flagger. It also kept them rotated and less stress on the body. Kept them earning too.

Now thos places are taken and the guys have no rotation to go to, and they have to go out on disability.

[gundog]

Even as a half-crippled, middle-age man, I'd choke that DS out in about two minutes.

We had a tall, slender former model for a TI. We called her "the Black Widow." Nobody wanted to piss her off because she was an authority figure and could ruin your chances of getting into the AF. And, yeah...any one of us coulda beat her to death inside a minute.

[Travis McGee]

"I went through reserve Marine basic. Same thing guys did. I passed. No special privileges."

It is to laugh. I went to Jump School at Ft Benning in 1980, after BUD/S Training in Cali. About a dozen ladies in our Jump School class. If any of them ever typed what you just typed above, I would be laughing my ass off until next Christmas. That is so delusional. I feel sorry for you, for your separation from reality. Maybe, with luck, you will get through life with your fantasies intact, and you will tell folks you "went through exactly the same boot camp as the guys." But we will just shake our heads and nod to each other, knowingly.

[QT3.14]

Make a movie starring Demi Moore. If the movie succeeds so will Femenazi Ranger school. /s

Here's a real movie on YouTube for the Rangerette wanna-bes. A 90-
minute documentary where a NatGeo cameraman spent months at an
isolated outpost in rugged mountains of Afghanistan with the troopers.

Imagine a gal just being 'one of the guys' meeting the physical demands
while out on patrol and the day-to-day reality at the outpost needing
'special' treatment while claiming to be equal:

Restrepo

[ansel12]

Artillery is combat arms, an average 155 shell weighs 93 pounds, the spade that I used to lift, carry, and install alone, to free up an extra digger on quick fires weighed 220 pounds or so.

Even in support, like the mess haul and truck driving, women fail, figure a liquid at roughly 8 lb.s per gallon, then look at mess hall pots, or a giant slab of beef, or a truck driver that can't lift the tire to replace it.

The military is mostly moving and lifting stuff, out in the country, and not on your own schedule.

Scenario: I can't give you enough time, but men are dying and the only thing that can save some of them and keep our front from collapsing is getting these supplies loaded back up on the trucks and moved through 30 miles of mud, fields, hills, and a creek before the counterattack, you will become infantry once there, until replaced.

The only help that I can give you is to offer you the option of a male crew, or a female crew, whichever you choose will be short handed, and they haven't slept in 3 days, and rations have been short for 6 weeks.

[SkyDancer]

Hah! I was flying a twin and ran into a thunderstorm. The guy with me in the right seat was a Marine pilot I was taking back to the town where we both live. It was night. The rain was beating against the windscreen and you couldn’t see crap. There was lightning going off all around us. This guy was like sweating bullets and I swear ever few seconds he farted. I told him nothing to worry about. Then when things were really getting bad I looked at him and asked him to scare me. WTF he says - why? I said I had the hiccups, could concentrate.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Ma'am, while it is accepted protocol to ping Freepers you refer to in your posts, I'm not the one to get hung up on trivial niceties.

But if you think my screenname is some literal boast, and not an ironic joke, well, you're the kind of credulous fool I find boring.

[SkyDancer]

We weren’t in the same class as the guys. Enjoy your delusion.

[Travis McGee]

I'll go up against any Marine Recon anytime anywhere anyplace. And I'm only 5'6 and weigh in at 110lbs.

As I said earlier, I sincerely hope you live a charmed life, and can take that total fantasy with you to the grave after many, many decades of peaceful life.

[rlmorel]

"...The very bottom line for the military is its goal is to win - everything else is secondary..."That IS getting right to the bottom line, isn't it. Having someone with enhanced promotion opportunities is going to be a cold comfort when there are 50,000 of our military tied up in a Bataan somewhere.