What do you "Honestly" think about women attending Ranger School?

Honest truth? Keep the standard the same. Keep it hard, because this is a hard job. And if a female graduates by the same standards as the males do? To hell with anyone else; she just passed Ranger school, and deserves it! That's all anyone should have to say. If the standards are the same (and, as far as I know, they are), she passed the Pre-Ranger Course, then Ranger School... she's a Ranger.

That's how it should be in every aspect of life. If they can do the job, they do the job. If they can't, they can't. Regardless of gender (or anything else).

If they can pass the hard standards, congratulations! There will be a few who do. Not if but when.

If a female soldier can hack it I say more power to her if she can't no exception should be given. Its not just the boys playground anymore. It not about a coveted slot in Ranger School its about a women being in a boys club and the boys don't like it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/02/24/number-of-women-set-to-attend-army-ranger-school-inches-up/


I am just going to say that this is going to be an issue. Out of 17 women that made it only one was successful. Altogether out of 43 only 6 have made it past Pre-Ranger. That is a 13% success rate. I think this may be adding up. If this were any other military school it would not be viewed as a success. If you take the gender out of it what you would you think.

Colonel Darby is probably seething in unappeasable discontentment in heaven at this moment in time. He would have guffawed at the very notion of female Rangers. Rogers also would be disconcerted over the inclusion of women in Ranger Battalions. Women should be totally excluded from any combat arms. In retrospect I clearly can't imagine women storming Point De Huc and successfully occupying it. Women lack the stamina to overcome extreme adversity like Normandy, Tarawa, Pellelui, Iwo Jima and the Bulge. Try to imagine women assaulting Omaha beach. It's inconceivable.

So you're telling me the females who are out doing combat patrols, dragging fallen Soldiers out of kill zones, getting wounded or killed doing "infantry" duty don't have the right to go to a course because they're female? Hmmmm.

I am by no means bashing any Ranger or infantryman, but I've seen some females that would put some to shame.

Yes I inderstand there are certain female problems, but that didn't seem to effect any of the ones in my squad from completing a mission.

But get what's an a retired MP know, right?

1SG David Lopez, I think the soldier in the introductory photo needs to work on her salute!

I want to begin by making it very clear where I stand on the subject of gender equality. I will always be someone who fights for equal opportunity among men and women in almost every aspect of our modern lives. However, there is one area that I must be very transparent about what I believe. The United States military crossed the line when gender equality in combat operations became more important than human life.

Thomas Brennan accounts, “When my squad arrived at our outpost in Afghanistan in 2010, one of the first things we did was outfit our living quarters with trash bags, cardboard and salvaged wood to ease the vicious winds…We urinated into a metal pipe fed through a Hesco barricade filled with dirt and burned our feces in a metal drum. There were no showers or water for showers, so, after each day’s long and grueling foot patrols we pulled on new socks and used baby wipes and body powder. It was miserable, but we endured the misery together.”
There were times we had to be in our vehicles for three or more days. When we needed to relieve ourselves it would be in plastic bottles or bags. With women in the vehicle the patrol would have to stop. All doors would be open for a tarp wall to be constructed no matter how dangerous the situation is. This exposes the troops and makes them vulnerable for ambush.
This can’t be a matter of equal opportunity or political correctness.It has to be about operating at max efficiency and speed to ensure that there are no casualties.

A man is biologically programmed to be a protector, a provider, and a fixer. That is not new knowledge, and neither is the knowledge that failure to carry out these desires is internalized by most men.
During combat there is an immediate kinship developed between soldiers. They become like brothers. Sacrificing their own life would be done without hesitation if it meant saving the lives of their brothers. With women in combat it is only natural that our biological instincts would take over, and we would immediately assume the role as their protector. Therefore, it should be no surprise that a woman dying under our care would affect us differently than if it were a man. Both are equally tragic, but the thoughts would begin pouring in. “I should have protected her. I should have been there.” Yes, these are thinking errors, but that does not stop a man from having these thoughts in a horrible situation like this. Mentally, the scenario would get much worse if she had a husband and children at home.

Did you know one out of every five national suicides is a veteran of war? According to http://www.cnn.com, twenty-two veterans take their lives daily, which equals about one every hour. The Department of Veterans Affairs released this information in February of 2013. (Read More) The 1994 ban keeping women from combat roles was lifted in January of 2013, and young veteran suicide has only increased since then. I can not say this is merely a coincidence.
I can not imagine the horror I would feel if someone sexually assaulted my wife, sisters, or my mother. That is why this topic is very difficult for me to discuss, but it is so very important. The numbers do not lie. The Department of Defense has claimed that “tens of thousands of unwanted sexual contacts occur in the military every year, yet only a fraction of those get reported.” Another report showed that in 2012 there were 3,374 sexual assaults recorded that were directly related to the military. In 2013, there were 5,061 reported. You may wonder why there would be such a drastic climb in numbers. As I mentioned in a previous post, the 1994 ban keeping women from combat was lifted in January of 2013. That means the number of women in combat positions has steadily been increasing since the ban was lifted. In the past you would have had roughly twenty men in one platoon. Now you may have eighteen men and two women.There are many issues that this can cause, but the one that concerns me the most is the likelihood of there being an unwanted sexual encounter. It is true that men need to be respectful, accountable, and self-controlled, but if all the men in this world were perfect there would be no need for this conversation. The harsh reality is this world is not perfect, and combat overseas is far from normal civilian life. Take a bunch of immature eighteen-year-old boys, and add in some anger and rage caused by ten-twelve months of war. Combine that with little to no contact with women for almost one year, and you have a situation that can quickly get very bad.

We live in an age where the push for equal opportunity in this nation has crossed the line of fair and down right absurd. I don’t understand how and when it became “sexist” to say that men are physically stronger than women. Lately I have heard, “Women are not stronger because men don’t want them to be stronger” or “Women face many more challenges than men, which makes them stronger”. This list could go on and on. I am not saying that women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. I believe it would do us all some good if we could relax a little and stop being so sensitive. It is commonly accepted in the medical field that men have 50% more brute strength and upper body strength than women. “Men naturally have a higher percentage of lean muscle mass than women… ‘Men not only have more muscle, but pound for pound, their muscle is slightly stronger than a woman’s — about 5 to 10 percent, says Lou Schuler in “The New Rules of Lifting for Women.’ ”
It appears as though this is a concept that even the United States military understands and accepts as truth. In the Army, men ages 22-26 must be able to do 40 push ups, but for women in the same age bracket, they are only required to do 17. Likewise, men must be able to run two miles in sixteen minutes, thirty-six seconds, yet women are allowed three extra minutes to compete the same distance. (See physical fitness requirements here) This is only a small portion of the different physical requirements between men and women. I once had to carry an unconscious man on my back down an incredibly steep mountain to get him to a medic. How is a woman going to carry me down a steep mountain when she weighs less than me and is required to perform much less than I am on a physical fitness tests? In that situation she would definitely perform at her full efficiency, but it would not be the efficiency needed to ensure her safety and the safety of those around.

Did you know that since 1970, the majority of our military interventions have been in Muslim countries? Contrary to popular belief, we are not only in these countries to subdue an enemy; rather, much of our job revolves around winning the hearts and minds of those around and creating more friends than we create enemies. We must be able to earn the respect and trust of the local leadership before they will ever be comfortable about giving us information that will lead to what we need. We must be able to communicate effectively and learn what their needs are. We build mosques, schools, wells for clean water, and more. Allowing women to serve in these roles would be detrimental to the military’s success in Islamic countries. Most native men refuse to even look at a women if her head and face aren’t covered, much less allow them to have any type of authority or leadership. They would find it humiliating and disrespectful, and we would be creating more hostility than we would be building the quality relationships we desperately need. If a Muslim man doesn’t even look at his own wife as if she is equal, how will he look at someone he has never met as if she deserves respect as an authority figure? It is the senior officers and those in combat positions who are carrying out these tasks, and these duties just can not be done by women in these countries. I do not agree with the social standards muslim women are held to nor do I believe it is acceptable, but my belief does not make this reality go away. We are not in these countries to force a different belief. We are in these countries to carry out the missions set forth by the U.S. government, and we need to be able to do so as effectively as possible.

If they can hack it, why not? It's not like they're trying to get into SFOD-D or SEAL's. There's plenty of fat-body, weak-minded men who get the opportunity and promptly flunk out, so if a woman has the guts, the desire, and the ability, let her.

I'm sure many females are ready and able. Not sure about some of the males, or most of America. As long as the standard is the standard for everyone. Its going to be interesting.