Females fail first phase of Ranger experiment. What are your thoughts?

The Army announced that the last of the female candidates for Ranger school have failed the first experiment. Of course, according to the Christian Science Monitor, this has sparked a debate about whether or not the standard is realistic.

The Rangers are the best of the best, and being a Ranger means passing a physical test that pushes body and mind to the breaking point. If women can’t do it, the argument goes, then they shouldn’t be Rangers.

But there is another opinion quietly being voiced as well: that Ranger School is more akin to a rite of passage – an opportunity for men to “thump their chest,” as one Ranger puts it – than a realistic preparation for leading in war. That women can actually make Ranger units more effective. And that the standards that keep them out are outdated.

Of course, I predicted this debate when the idea was floated about allowing women into the elite forces – that when women didn’t meet the minimum standard, it would be because the standard was unrealistic. That’s why I was pulling for one or several women who would complete the school successfully at the current standard. The whole point for Ranger School is not create chest-thumping neanderthals, it’s to create or test leaders under combat conditions without an actual enemy shooting at them. It is to create conditions that test a student’s ability to successfully complete the mission even though he, and his subordinates, are exhausted, famished, and sore.

Rangers have to be able to operate at 100% far from any other American troops, with all of their equipment to survive and fight on their backs and their only means of arriving at the battle or the objective of their mission is their own two feet. So where do you compromise the standard?

Of course, Ray Mabus, the Navy Secretary, is ready to throw the SEALs under the bus;

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the Navy Times this week that once women start attending SEAL training, it would make sense to examine the standards. “First, we’re going to make sure there are standards. Second, that they are gender-neutral, and third, that they have something to do with the job,” he said.

Why would there be a standard if it had nothing to do with the job? Obviously, Mabus doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But we knew that from some of his other stupid decisions in that job.

All 20 of the women who took part in this experiment have nothing to be ashamed about. A lot of men didn’t make the standard right along side of them. I hope and encourage the Army to continue to allow women to try and make the standard, but a lot of soldiers depend on the current standard to be led by only the best graduates of those schools and lowering the standard has nothing to do with chest-thumping and everything to do with bringing soldiers home safely from war? According to statistics, only 3 percent of the U.S. Army is Ranger-qualified..

http://news.yahoo.com/8-women-fail-ranger-school-rangers-standards-change-214600870.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/01/none-8-remaining-female-candidates-pass-first-phase-ranger-school/