If an officer asked to be dropped from Ranger school is that a career ender ? If so, why?

If you asked to be dropped you will never be accepted again. It looks pretty damn bad and unless you are absolutely shit hot, you will hit your ceiling at O4.

It does. I am in the National Guard. As an officer in the Guard we really aren't afforded the opportunity of our active duty brothers to go to Ranger School. So it is not a bit deal for us. But when I was enlisted at Bragg I didn't think you could be an infantry officer without a Ranger Tab. I ever saw one. I know now that it happens. I did speak to a LTC at Benning about this. He stated that it does affect your career. Just by nature the Tabbed Officer will get preference. This LTC was a Battalion Commander at Basic Training. He knew it would never get a line infantry battalion without a tab.

Failure to complete any rigorous school or otherwise is a kiss of death to the officer, esp for something such as 'lack of motivation' as mentioned by MAJ David Vermillion and COL Jon Thompson . Yr legs had better be broken from a crash and burn in the drop zone rather than DOR. I hate to think what's going to happen to the various Marine Corps Officers who did not comple Infantry Officers Course. They should probably fall on their swords.. Used to be monitors put a big red asterisk(*) on yr personnel file at Headquarters Marine Corps ("he's a strawberry") it was then said, and those were the first files tossed out at any promotion board, etc.

A DOR is an indication that the officer is not in the right place. He either was not confident enough in himself when he got assigned to the school or when he DORd. While that might improve over the life of his career it should be a serious point of contention before promotion boards.

No. I have served with a variety of officers and enlisted that attended and quit, failed the PT test, or simply refused to attend ranger school. Here is the answer at the end of the day: Ranger school is a development leadership school which focuses heavily on small unit tactics. It is not the be-all end-all school, but it is as close to establishing a baseline of common understanding and familiarization across the force as possible. Want to know how to set up an ambush? Ranger school will teach you to standard based on years of deployment experience packed into a small book.
Now if you as a combat arms leader, elect not to participate in that development, then you will have to make up for it in other ways in order to be viewed positively by your peers and seniors. For officers, it is an expectation that you go.

As a prior service 11B that switched over and is finishing up company command time as an 11A, I will tell you that I expect officers and enlisted to not just go, but to desire to go. It is all about self improvement and increasing one's ability to be successful on the battlefield.

With that said, I have had a variety of PSG and 2LT/1LTs that have gone and failed for whatever reason. As long as they endeavor to improve themselves and are open to learning I can work with that. Otherwise, they have failed twice and should find themselves a new line of work.

SSG(P) (Join to see) Years ago, Original Darby Ranger, Ray O’Dell told me that he was a Hill Billy from the WV coal mines and that during the “original Ranger training’, that as a WV coal miner, he would fall dead before he Quit!

Ray also told me that he did not engage in hands on activity with his sons. He was concerned he might severely injure them!

Here is a thought does having a tab actually make you a good leader. Not necessarily I know plenty of great leaders who don’t have tabs, never went, or dident graduate. I also know many tabbed officers who couldn’t lead a mob out of a wet paper bag but by god they had a tab and could run. Do you consider all the Special forces guys with no ranger tab bad leaders. Do you consider all the Armor officers or Field Artillarybofficers and NCO’s bad leaders. I would say if you evaluate a persons propensity to be a good leader based on a single quality you are missing out on what it means to be a good leader and evaluator yourself.

As a new platoon leader in the 7th ID in 1989 and recent Ranger School grad, I remember our brigade commander asking non-Ranger qualified Lt's when they were going back. Non-qual Lts were far more likely to get sent to division or brigade for taskings.

It doesn't look on your records and probably will hurt your career in some way.

It is not. It can impact 11series for leadership time. Other MOS’ it has always been used as a leadership development program. If they do not finish for any reason who would know. Thank you for your service.