Women in Combat Arms/ SOF Discussion

The Army's plans for women in Ranger School, starting in April:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ueling-ranger-job-to-women/?intcmp=latestnews

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/2015/01/15/women-ranger-school-assessment/21708147/

Female soldiers will be allowed to attend Ranger School in April as part of a one-time, integrated assessment, the Army announced Thursday.
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"We're just going to let the statistics speak for themselves as we go through this," he said, in response to a question from a soldier. "The main thing I'm focused on is the standards remain the same. In order to earn that tab, you have to do all the things necessary to earn that tab. We want to try a pilot to let women have the opportunity to do that."
"We don't know if it's five people graduate, or 100 people graduate, or no one graduates," he said. "This is just a pilot to gain information for us to understand where we are, and then we'll take that data and make a determination on how we want to move forward."
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The Army then allocated 160 seats at the two-week Army National Guard Ranger Training and Assessment Course, said Col. David Fivecoat, commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The Army is requiring all female soldiers who want to attend the two-month Ranger School to complete the pre-Ranger course, which takes place at Fort Benning.
There will be 40 seats for female candidates in each iteration of the Ranger Training and Assessment Course between January and April, Fivecoat said.
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However, not all of the 160 will end up attending Ranger School.
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Chopped for brevity. According to this, 160 will go to Pre-Ranger and those who pass it will go to Ranger School starting in April. I suspect we'll have some unoffical feedback (RI's quietly making comments), but some telling stats will be how many complete Pre-Ranger and how many earn a tab. I'm not trying to make a Marine Infantry vs. Ranger debate....so no one go there, but we see those numbers; the Corps has been very transparent.

I actually think this is great because it is "put up or shut up" time for supporters and detractors. I think if the Army's numbers deviate from the Corps' that will cause some problems, but the standard is supposed to be just that.
 
What impact will the female Cadre Ranger Instructors have on the women passing Pre-Ranger and Ranger school? I'm willing to bet the females will be more lenient on things they can control as they will want the females to pass. The make instructors on the other hand may be looking for a reason to fail them (unless of course the brass wants them to pass). I just hope it's a fair assessment for all.
 
If the standard is a 40km movement in 16 hrs, with full battle rattle, that's the standard, you do it or you don't... why is this so difficult for people to digest.... there are reasons for most of the standards- in combat - if you can't hump the MG/ammo/AT/mortar, you are of no use.... if you can't hump your ruck, you are of no use, if you can't navigate in the woods at night, you are of no use, if you can't drag your buddy who is also in full battle rattle to a safe location so you can lay down effective suppressing and withering fire, you are of no use... that's why the standards exist.

Yes, it is discriminatory, it has to be in order for true unit cohesion, trust that your teammate/squadmate meets or exceeds the standards is comforting and required.
 
I have zero confidence that the Army will maintain it's standards as the Marines are doing thus far. I hope I'm proved wrong.
 
I always try to keep a 1% chance in the back of my mind that something would happen whereby the standards would remain the same. But, like @pardus, I don't have much confidence in that happening.

I think it may be more like what I heard today on a radio program...the new standard is going to be "changing the standards" as they exist today.

Sadly enough, I think they will all be changed in the future. Hopefully, I will be proven wrong. If so, I will gladly accept my wrongful thinking.
 
I think the "we'll let statistics speak for themselves" line is bullshit. If the statistics aren't going the way they want, I believe it will turn into "upon further review we've decided there's no viable reason for the standards to be so high that women aren't passing in the numbers we want them to". Then the standards will be lowered to allow an acceptable number of women to pass and allow everyone to feel like they accomplished some major social change. I hope I'm wrong.
 
CDG said:
I think the "we'll let statistics speak for themselves" line is bullshit.
Click to expand...

I think they will speak for themselves though not in a traditional sense. If RS produces a few women with tabs with the Marines do not, the Army will have to justify why standards for RS are less than those for the Marines. We'll also know the fix is in and I won't be surprise if RI's start discussing the events offline. That word will eventually trickle out to the masses.

In general though, ths has the potential to cause issues external to the Army as comparisons are made. Internally this could actually cause a greater divide between men and women in uniform IF the standards are "adjusted" and women have tabs.

I agree with you though about them being lowered, but I'm interested to see how this shakes out. It has the potential to open some major divides within the services.
 
Freefalling said:
I think they will speak for themselves though not in a traditional sense. If RS produces a few women with tabs with the Marines do not, the Army will have to justify why standards for RS are less than those for the Marines. We'll also know the fix is in and I won't be surprise if RI's start discussing the events offline. That word will eventually trickle out to the masses.

In general though, ths has the potential to cause issues external to the Army as comparisons are made. Internally this could actually cause a greater divide between men and women in uniform IF the standards are "adjusted" and women have tabs.

I agree with you though about them being lowered, but I'm interested to see how this shakes out. It has the potential to open some major divides within the services.
Click to expand...

It still grinds my teeth that this is still trying to be pushed.
 
If I were still in, I'd have a custom made t-shirt made with a tab that said "Refuse" on it, because I'd refuse to go. How 'bout that for a political statement? I'd sooner fail out of the Marines' IOC than get the gimme on Ranger school.
 
lindy said:
It's worth noting that RTAC is for National Guard and the class size capacity is 54 but in March it jumps to 100. Why is that?
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I'd be less concerned about the Guard angle and more about the class sizes. with 160 making a run at it, you could see those additional slots as 40 female soldiers per class. In theory that doesn't hamper the number of men who are prepped for RS. We're all smart enough to know that without a corresponding increase in QUALIFIED cadre, nearly doubling the class size is a recipe for a lot of weakness to slip through the system. I witnessed first hand the drive for numbers over quality and bean counters love their numbers....

Like I said, it will all shake out in a few months, for better or worse.
 
Housekeeping note:

I've merged two seperate yet similar threads. If you look at the date-time stamps and discussion it will be a bit disjointed, but I made the executive decision to merge them based on a common theme.
 
Marauder06 said:
I went in '91 and no pullups and no PT test, I just submitted my PT card. We did pullups before chow and during training, but it wasn't a "zero day" requirement.
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Wow... I'm really surprised to hear that. Very interesting to see how it has changed over the years.

I spoke with a paratrooper who jumped 2 or 3 times during the Korean war.
He said during Airborne school that his platoon had to stand in a large circle facing inwards, two Soldiers from opposite sides were selected by the cadre, one had to chase the other, if the chasee was caught, the chaser whipped him with his web belt. The guy I spoke too was quite proud that he'd never been caught.
 
I went to Airborne School the summer after my freshman year in college. The NCOIC of my ROTC program pencil-whipped a PT test scorecard, giving me a score "high enough that the cadre won't screw with you when you report in." We got the snot smoked out of us, but there was no physical fitness test-in requirement. And I'm kind of glad too, when I was 18 I couldn't do pullups, because it wasn't on the PT test and there was no school (that I could go to at that time) that required it.
 

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