Yesterday, April 20, marked a turning point for U.S. Army women, as the first female soldiers started Ranger School. Those who successfully complete the course will be awarded the coveted black and gold Ranger tab. And whenever the first woman pins on her hard-won Ranger tab and steps in front of a platoon of soldiers, it will do much to silence the debate about whether women can serve in the toughest combat units in the Army.
Ranger School is the Army’s arguably most demanding leadership experience as well as a significant training ground for its combat leaders. And with both combat deployments and battlefield experience now diminishing, the importance of Ranger School as a crucible for training future Army combat leaders will only increase. The 62-day course is the equivalent of an Olympic competition for combat arms volunteers. It produces unparalleled small unit leaders capable of leading all types of troops under highly adverse conditions. Ranger students negotiate swamps, mountains, and forests with ever-decreasing sleep and food while conducting ever more arduous day and night patrols with heavy loads.
To make it through the first week of the course, any Ranger candidate — male or female — has to complete 49 pushups, 59 sit-ups, six chin-ups, run five miles in 40 minutes, complete a 15 meter swim, foot march 12 miles in three hours with a 45 pound pack, navigate a cross-country compass course, traverse an elevated log obstacle and water drop, and plunge into the water after zooming down a zipline. And then the real course starts. More than 60 percent of those who fail do so in the first week; overall graduation rates in previous (all male) classes hovered around 50 percent.
Soldiers who graduate from Ranger School wear the prized Ranger tab on their uniforms for the rest of their careers. While few ultimately serve in the very select special operations battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Ranger tab itself is a mark of utter toughness and successful leadership under pressure. Since its beginnings in the 1950s, many graduates of the course have looked back on Ranger School as physically tougher than their later combat experiences. Others have argued that the repeat combat experiences of recent wars have lessened its importance as a key combat leader qualification.
Ranger School is not the be-all and end-all litmus test of whether women can perform in ground combat roles in the U.S. military, but it is a significant and symbolic cultural and practical benchmark. And it has not been watered down for female candidates.
Although this week’s course is technically an experiment — the Army has only approved one gender-integrated course so far — there is little question that Ranger School will be fully open to women in the near future. For decades, small numbers of soldiers from all Army specialties — including signal corps, aviation, and intelligence — have attended, often despite having no prospects for a future assignment in a Ranger unit. Even if some Army ground combat units are unexpectedly not fully opened to women, there is no reason that women in these other fields who meet the prerequisites should not attend future courses.
Women who graduate will set the same example of tough, uncompromising leadership across the Army that their Ranger-qualified male peers do today. And eventually women will graduate, whether that happens in this test course or not. Women who earn the Ranger tab will slowly change the culture of the Army, much as women fighter pilots and destroyer skippers did for their warfare communities. Women graduates will personify the highest standards of leadership. They will be accepted in a culture focused on ground combat because they have demonstrated in unqualified terms that they can succeed at the toughest physical and mental leadership challenges that can be found outside of combat.
Much ink has been spilled in recent years as to why women should not be permitted in ground combat units, or the military schools that train principally ground combat troops. Retired Army four-star General and World War Two veteran Frederick Kroesen argued recently that the infantry in particular is not suited to women because women compete separately in the Olympics and most professional sports. Others have argued that ground combat units need to remain all male so the bands of social cohesion that permit those units to adhere in combat are not eroded.
Both viewpoints are off base. Women successfully serve in the infantry of several NATO allies. Social cohesion arguments were used to argue against integrating gays and African-Americans into the military, and turned out to be wrong. Numerous studies have shown that task cohesion (the shared commitment to achieving a common goal) is a stronger predictor of performance than social cohesion. Furthermore, performance seems to be more important for cohesion than the other way around — groups that perform well tend to be more cohesive.
As long as the physical, objective standards required of ground combat units are not compromised — and the standards represent real, validated performance requirements and not simply arbitrary traditions — then qualified women should be part of their makeup. To suggest otherwise perpetuates the same hoary traditions that once permeated the jet fighter community, as well as Navy warships and submarines.
One of this column’s authors served three tours of duty in Army Ranger battalions, including during the invasions of Panama and Grenada. As a Ranger company commander, he remembers well an overheard conversation between the battalion’s combat-experienced second-in-command and the unit personnel officer at the headquarters some months after a combat operation. The staff officer noted approvingly that a young lieutenant about to be newly assigned to the unit was “a real [physical] stud.” The battalion exec retorted, “I don’t care if he is a stud or not. I want to know if he is smart!”
Completing Ranger School is about far more than superior physical fitness. As any graduate will tell you, it is an intensive two-month long test of the spirit and soul. Endurance, fortitude, stamina, and teamwork count for more than raw physical abilities. Many highly fit candidates break down under the stress of repeatedly being thrust into graded leadership positions under ever-more arduous conditions compounded by seemingly unending difficulties.
Women should be tested in this cauldron. In today’s world, combat can erupt during the mission of any type of unit, from infantry patrols to logistics convoys. Afghanistan and Iraq have together provided innumerable examples of all types of integrated units of men and women coming under fire. The men and women leading those units had to respond and lead in combat. Soldiers of all specialties deserve to have leaders who are trained to the very highest combat standards and can lead them effectively under fire. To deny women leaders the opportunity to receive the Army’s premier combat leader training in Ranger School deprives these units of the most highly trained leadership they rightly deserve in battle. Combat does not differentiate by gender and neither should the military’s preparation of its leaders to perform in that crucible.
The first women to earn Ranger tabs will effectively end the debate as to whether women have what it takes to lead combat units. A female lieutenant with a Ranger tab will demonstrate indisputably that women are capable of leading troops under the toughest conditions — including combat. Ranger School has long been built on that premise, and its graduates admired for their superior small unit combat skills. Graduating from Ranger School and earning the tab unquestionably connotes having met the Army’s toughest standards for its combat leaders outside of the battlefield. And while this inaugural integrated class may not produce that first Ranger-qualified female leader, that day is coming and the Army will be a far better service for it.
Lt. General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.) is a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, and Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence, at the School of International Service at American University. Their column appears in War on the Rocks every other Tuesday.
Photo credit: The U.S. Army
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What is the point of this article? The other articles on War On the Rocks that support gender integration in combat arms at least acknowledge it was a debate and presented arguments. This article goes to show why so many soldiers are apprehensive about the integration of women; it appears that the Army’s already reached its conclusion and is just trying to find evidence to support it. I don’t know if current leaders care more about combat effectiveness or pushing a progressive agenda.
The one factor alone that I consider enough to keep women from combat arms is pregnancy, whether planed or unplanned. No platoon in my unit is close to full strength, but we could be deployed at any point to fight at anytime. Every soldier counts, but I’ve seen soldiers lost to injury, freak medical issues, permanent medical issues, their own stupidity, and for lack of motivation. I don’t want to add pregnancy to that list. I don’t want to have to change crews around and qualify them again because a gunner got pregnant. I don’t want to see a peer lose her platoon because she got pregnant. Lieutenants can only expect so much time to lead a platoon and a pregnancy can easily cover most of it.
I understand other branches have learned how to deal with that particular issue. I just don’t see why our country’s primary effort has to deal with it. Plenty of my male soldiers are having kids and I wish some of them weren’t, but they’ll deploy regardless. I know some women have planned their pregnancies around their career, but accidents do happen. I also don’t want to punish a person for starting a family.
Don’t assume I don’t wish these women the best. I went to West Point with some of them and I already know they were quality collegiate athletes and could very well make it through Ranger School. I also know they were the exception at West Point among the females that attended.
Statistically, all Rangers from USMA were the exception at West Point, even among males that attended. I’ve spent a LOT of time around West Point cadets. Few outside of those already competing would have even made quality collegiate athletes at a reputable program. Rangers are an exception regardless of the demographic.
W/re to your pregnancy comment: Comical, at best.
Pregnancy? That’s your central idea? Any woman who goes through Ranger School is not one to use pregnancy as an excuse. My wife spent 20 years in the Army (I spent 24) and she’d be the first to tell you your whole take on things belongs in a 1950s SITCOM (that’s situational comedy).
As a former tanker, I well know the issues with shortages on tank crews so please don’t lecture on that aspect. All units have been short at one time or another and I’v used clerks and maintenance types as loaders for gunnery and during FTXs. While lack of troopers is a valid concern, noting that pregnancy would be an issue isn’t.
While I acknowledge that there are valid arguments on both sides of this debate, there’s a point of hypocrisy that seems to be getting ignored. Those who think that gender integration of combat arms units is a futile and unworthy pursuit are met with derision, but those who claim that such an outcome is inevitable are not met with the same derision. The truth of the matter is that we don’t know, and speaking in such certainties on either side of the debate is unwise. As this WOTR article from last week rightly noted, folks in the “inevitable” camp seem all too eager to avoid acknowledging that the DoD (and foreign militaries, if we’re being quite honest) have an unbroken record of relaxing standards in order to integrate women, or that the integration of women has brought with it many of the very detractors from morale and readiness that critics predicted beforehand. Conversely, present day critics (while obviously having history on their side) seem unwilling to consider the possibility that women might be competitive enough to meet standards. As with so many polarizing issues, facts and data are being ignored in their entirety by both parties.
I suspect that we will see women integrated into combat arms units, based not upon whether or not it serves any sort of practical or tactical purpose, but because there are enough people in positions of influence who want “progress” for the sake of progress, and are insulated from any of the ramifications, positive or negative, that their vision of progress might entail. As Ms. Simons rightly noted last week, no stars will be thrown on the table in protest because, ultimately, most officers’ principles are understandably coterminous with their livelihood.
I was with you until your point about “progress” making women in combat arms inevitable. How’s that working for you with female aviators across the Services, ship captains, leaders to battalion and below, and even the new, first ever Vice CNO of the Navy?
Reality is that your note is simply a lively veiled over “women in the kitchen making a sandwich” approach. People who see integration across the board aren’t derisively seen or commented on? Where have you been? Both sides get hit daily in social media and otherwise. Apparently stars are being thrown n the table, look no further than the Ranger School experiment and the BS about how folks are trying to compare Marine Infantry Basic not having women finish as somehow being the same as RS.
No standards have been changed and that is the central point. So far, 78 men and 3 women have washed out of the initial PT phase. Pretty sure the women were not your typical male who goes to a school unprepared for the PT aspect. In my 24 years in the Army, I’ve seen more than my fair share of male Soldiers get dropped out of a school because they were physically unprepared. That, my friend, is hypocrisy at its fullest because it is the mentality of “I’m a guy and I can get through PT easy.”
“How’s that working for you with female aviators across the Services, ship captains, leaders to battalion and below, and even the new, first ever Vice CNO of the Navy?”
All of whom have been performing, at the very least physically, to standards lower than that of their male counterparts for their entire careers. As I said, the DoD has an unbroken track record of holding female personnel to a different standard than male personnel.
“Reality is that your note is simply a lively veiled over “women in the kitchen making a sandwich” approach.”
You’re entitled to your opinion, and I’m entitled to think that acknowledging that men and women are different down to the cellular level, and bring different strengths and weaknesses to the fight, is not the same as a “women in the kitchen making a sandwich approach”. I’m the first one to champion the force-multiplying role of Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan. On a purely scientific level, I have yet to see a cogent argument for introducing women into combat arms specialties. I have, on the other hand, seen what I perceive as a lot of tunnel vision and selective interpretation based upon political imperatives.
“Both sides get hit daily in social media and otherwise. Apparently stars are being thrown n the table, look no further than the Ranger School experiment and the BS about how folks are trying to compare Marine Infantry Basic not having women finish as somehow being the same as RS.”
Flag and general officers resigning, of which I’ve heard of not a single one, is not equivalent to a bunch of bored retirees opining on social media. Sorry.
If women are allowed to be in infantry units then they should be required to register for selective service as males hav eto do when they turn 18, and women who enlist in the military on open contracts should be eligibe to be involuntarily assigned to infantry units as men are currently. I think this involuntary assignment of women to infantry, or combat arms jobs, would give many women pause before they joined the military and make the Army and Marine Corps as whole less gender integrated. I also think that this would lead to a higher attrition rate at infantry training because there are indeed physical differences between men and women. Yes, some women are stronger than some men, but as a whole men are stronger than women and do not have to work as hard as women to maintain their strength as they get older and time is taken away from working out to do staff work or spend time with family.
I completely concur with women having to sign up for Selective Service. But then you segue into the standard “they can’t hack it in Infantry” completely forgetting that if a draft occurred, Infantry is not the only recipient of those getting drafted. That is a false argument that it would “give women pause” because it gave men pause during Vietnam to go seek exemptions or flee the country. So much for male dominance.
We already see fat lame and lazy men get dropped from combat arms basic and the current disparity at this RS experiment (3 women dropped, 78 males) shows the wrong mentality.
And your last is a complete fail. Men are stronger? Don’t have to work as hard as they get older? How old are you that you make such a dumbs comment. I fight the battle of the bulge daily as an over 50 male and certainly have to work harder than when I was 30 years younger. And since those who graduate RS don’t all fall in in the 75th Ranger Regiment, your last is even further from the truth.
Pat,
I am 42 years old and have to work harder than I did at 18 to fight the bulge as well, but I was naturally stronger than women at that age then and I am naturally stronger than women at my age now. If this were not true the the physical fitness tests in the military would not be different for men and women. The physical differences between men and women are the primary reason why none of the women who have attempted the USMC Infantry Officer’s Course have completed it. The women who attempted that course were much further above (physically) the average woman in today’s population than the men who go through this course are above (physically) the average male in today’s population. There was an enlisted female who recently went through the field artillery school and was a top academic performer, but when it came time to load rounds in the howitzer she could not lift the round and place it in the breech. Are there women who could do this? Yes, but as a whole women are weaker than men and the attrition rate in military jobs that are of an intense physical nature will be higher for women than men. Yes, this class at Ranger School had initial drop rates that were higher for men than for women, but the women all went through the Ranger prep course. All of the men did not. One Woman even went through the course THREE times! Do you not think that the prep course affected the attrition rate? My point about aging is that women have to work harder than men to build upper body strength when they are younger and the same will be true when they are older and more senior in rank. At which time they will have to spend more time behind a desk doing admin work and less time available to work out. Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but you have to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.
I often see the rote repetition of “other countries” experience of women in Infantry units as a reason for us to do it also but I have yet to see an accurate relaying of what that actual experience is.
A Canadian field artillery forward observer serving in a mechanized unit is a far different experience than a platoon leader or machine gun bearer in a light infantry unit in the hindu kush. Serving in an Israeli Caracal “Infantry” battalion which is in actually a border patrol unit has quite different demands than the US SPECIFIC Infantry formation that must be capable of conducting a full spectrum of Infantry missions.
It’s like comparing the stellar performance of a female MP awarded the silver star responding to an attack on her convoy with the performance of those soldiers who received MOH’s in the Ganjal valley ignoring the totally different physical requirements it took to get the soldier into that fight in the first place.
Is the poor comparison the result of a lack of understanding of the conditions on the ground or a willful effort to conflate the two?
A part of me wonders if these articles are purposely written in such a way as to elicit a response. The sort of outrageous responses that can then be mined for quotes to use in other articles elsewhere. Or perhaps there is an element of satire or comic absurdity in how they are written.
I mean why draw the line with women: why aren’t there any transsexual Rangers? Surely every unit also needs a bearded woman, a cross-dresser, and a chick with dick.
We continue to mix Ranger School with combat forces designed to conduct direct combat with the enemy. Since Ranger School is a leadership school women should be allowed to attend. Their troops deserve the best leaders they can get. Just don’t change the standards to accommodate women. But women in combat forces is another issue. Of course there is the physical issue but beyond that unless you think it is a good climate to have 1 or 2 women in a company then let’s not waste our time. No country has a real success story. I hear CSA say they need at least 14 women in a unit in order to have integration. Well unless you stack the deck you won’t get there. Then I hear this “critical mass” argument of 33% of a unit. We will never get there. Women just won’t be interested and rightfully not sure why they should be.
If an when female soldiers graduate from Ranger school, congratulations to them.
The hard facts are approx 135 females signed up for pre-ranger, and as of day two they are down to 16 personnel. It is feasible to foresee 5-10 graduating, give or take a few (a 5% success rate)in a pipeline 40-50% of males pass. (Ranger school, and pre-ranger programs)
While no doubt some, would make it through, when you look at female soldiers 20% of the force, the small number that get through this, the small number that would volunteer for such programs knowing the odds…it begs the question of what is the purpose of all this. I cant see infantry formations with more than 2-3% female. Is that the goal? I cant see this as viable career opportunity for women, I cant see how it significantly improves combat readiness…and the sheer attrition of this process makes little sense unless, like so many others in the combat arms community, we suspect it is a foot in the door approach before standards are dropped.
I would be curious what the authors of this piece think the ultimate outcome should be. It is not about should they or shouldn’t they, because that seems a foregone conclusion. What does the future Army look like, how are standards maintained, how is it better. 16/135 isn’t a good start anywhere, and they have along way to go.
I only come to this blog for the comments on the female debate. You guys never let me down.
Someone smarter than me (which should include almost everyone in this thread) please give a coherent, reasoned, supportable argument describing how having women in a rifle platoon improves its ability to close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver?
In a single article General Barno has demonstrated why so many in and out of the services have such a low opinion of the senior leadership. Here is an article which essentially says, “If one woman makes it through, the case is proven.” If only a handful of women manage to get through, they will be seen as the outliers that they are, and the generalization that women and men are not equally capable of military service will be validated. That’s why so many officers – most recently Navy Vice-Chief of Naval Operations Michelle Howard – are pushing for quotas to achieve a critical mass. Howard has all but acknowledged that the Navy has had immense trouble retaining women. And standards were changed there.
That some women, somewhere have the ability to meet the male fitness standards (which incidentally as given in this article aren’t that extreme) is not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether a woman who can meet them is able to carry a wounded man 70 pounds heavier than her without gear, whether she can fight hand-to-hand, if necessary, against such a man, whether or not she is more likely to be injured on marches, whether she can get over the same height obstacle…the list goes on and on. There is ample data from the areas where women currently serve that this is a huge issue, and yes that applies to aviators and destroyer skippers (two of the most highly promoted women skippers – Etta Jones and Holly Graf were relieved for incompetence after finally screwing up too much despite multiple warning flags earlier in their careers). The bottom line is that the coed force is not working out well in any branch of the service. Articles and arguments that basically tell everyone that the conclusion has been reached and now one is simply looking to justify it only fuel suspicions that in fact the tests are somehow rigged. They also suggest a pervasive institutional dishonesty unequalled since the body counts of Vietnam, a corrupting influence that absolutely affects our professionalism. Indeed that Barno et al can’t see just how atypical our current “wars” have been, and how very different they’d be if we fought a competitive enemy, while also failing to note that the coed AVF hasn’t actually won any of them, suggests that professionalism is indeed in short supply. This is even more true of his claim that NATO countries that have gone this route prove it works is even more absurd: most of NATO’s military forces are little more than glorified police forces and none of them have faced competent enemies in combat either, and none of the ones that lined up with us in Iraq and Afghanistan did much better. The British Army is a hollow shell of what it once was, and that’s about typical.
The British Army doesn’t have women in their Infantry and their training and combat loads are similar to that of US infantrymen. There are no female Paratroopers, Marines, or Special Forces in the British military either.
Unlike the US Army the British Army hasn’t watered down their equivalent of Airborne School to allow women to pass, although to my knowledge, they are allowed to try out, it’s just none of them can make it.
The fact their military is a hollow of it’s former self is down to the fact it’s been cut so the government can spend more money on social programs.
Let’s be honest here, unless the standards are drastically watered down, not a single woman will pass Ranger School, any time soon or in the future.
Reality trumps social engineering and political correctness.
Around 30 women have attempted the USMC Infantry Officer Course, all have washed out, and only one made it past the first day. Bearing in mind, IOC has a 75%+ graduation rate for male candidates.
Only 34% of the 300+ female candidates for the enlisted initial infantry course, SOI/ITB, have passed, it has a 98% pass rate for males and as any Infantry Marine will tell you, the real training for an enlisted infantryman starts when he gets to the Fleet, so it doesn’t mean much.
Of the NATO militaries that allow women in their combat arms, like the Canadians, all have lowered their standards doing it, and don’t do much outside of UN peacekeeping operations – no sustained combat operations or fighting actual wars, nor do most of them carry the same loads as the US Infantryman does, so it’s a moot comparison.
No serious military or military recently engaged in any serious combat currently allows women in their Infantry – the Russians, Chinese, Israelis, British and French don’t – and the Russians and Israelis in particular have already experimented with it, in WW2 and the Arab-Israel War 1948 respectively, and found disastrous results.
This article never refutes the physical difference argument cited by GEN(R) Koresen. To get at that point, we need to first acknowledge that the mission of the US Army is to field the most combat capable force possible and not to achieve equality – to do otherwise is to put Soldiers lives at risk for some other purpose than to support and defend our Constitution (from the Oath of Office). Given that, the indisputable fact is that the vast majority of men and women are physically different. Sports is a great example of this point because in sports, the bottom line is performance. Most every sport related organization/league acknowledges this physical difference through male and female teams/leagues. It can be said that combat is a sporting event taken to the extreme. Given that, why would we expect any different results on the battlefield than on the sporting field? Are there women that can meet the combat arms physical standards today and perform as well as some men on the battlefield? Undoubtedly, but that number is extremely small and the question then becomes, is it worth the time, resources and efforts to integrate a small number of females into the combat arms force to achieve some sense of equality?
I have only one word. “Florida.” If you’ve been there, you know. Women have already passed the APFT to get in. And some will make it out of RAP week and move on to Darby. Some will undoubtedly make it to Camp Merrill and move on to Rudder. But Rudder is where real gut check happens. You’re down twenty pounds, starving, constantly wet, constantly exhausted and the rucks don’t get any lighter when their soaked. Florida was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and if there’s a woman out there that can make it to the sensitive items check after the airfield seizure with her “go,” then more power to her.
All I can say is that I’m just spinning, spinning, spinning.
http://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-WFRs7Q4/0/M/i-WFRs7Q4-M.jpg
Women getting into the Rangers is a big step forward for the US Army. Now whether you all like it or not. Women may not be physically tougher than men but they surely are psychologically. Mental fitness is any day superior to a man. Any one who’s been in combat will agree that you need more psyche fitness than physical. That’s the reason why body builders/boxers/weight lifter cannot be in the SFs. These courses prove to you that when your physical capability gives up, its the psyche fitness that see you thru. So lets not Rambo around.
“Women may not be physically tougher than men but they surely are psychologically”. Colonel, clearly you and I are not in the same military. In my years of service, there are few women I have encountered in my career who are psychologically better than men–in fact, they were the weakest links and the most psychologically vulnerable in a deployed environment. But let’s pretend and say your premise is correct. I would rather be in a foxhole with a man who outperforms a woman in his job than a psychologically sound women (which I shall call again into question) who lacks the physiologic requirements to perform. Maybe she will bring the enemy and soldiers together for some conflict resolution. Hold hands and sing happy songs.
The only women who want this are self-serving (selfless service fell off the radar) angry women who didn’t get their entitled star(s) and who want to shove their feminist agenda down he throat of every male combat arms soldier, demanding equality in an area where equality does not exist for very good reason. Combat arms will be a bastion of political correctness, sexual harassment and sexual assault….and all the women who demanded this will squawk about the mysoginistic men they have to work with rather than the reality that females do not belong and said as much on the survey we took two years ago. So ladies, let the men be men and do the things they do best. Let us do what we do best in the military–let it go.
What a ridiculous article. You just ASSUMED that they would pass this course. All they have proven that held to the same standard that they all failed. And yes, before you even say it I graduated Ranger school class 10-87 and the Special Forces Qualification Course class 4-92
Since this article was written, two women got through and passed Ranger training. Kudos to them. But now what? Let’s look at the military that everyone points to that has had experience integrating women into male combat units: The Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Women participated in combat with men in the 1948 war and the results of mixed sex combat units was that the units performed poorly in combat. Since this experience the IDF has not permitted women on the front lines with men. Recently the IDF did experiments and tests to see if women could perform in the tank corps and the conclusion was to keep the tank crews all male. The British military recently tried the same experiment we are now trying and determined that male infantry units performed better than mixed sex infantry units. Hence British infantry remains all male. But let’s presume the experience of these two countries is excluded from the debate. Let us start with some common sense questions. Is the U.S. looking for the best and most effective fighting force or the fairest and most inclusive military for women? What would be a more effective fighting force, an all male fighting force or an all female fighting force? It stretches the bounds of credulity to believe that an all female fighting force would be better than an all male force if not only for the reason that women have never formed armies of rebellion or conquest nor have such armies (if they ever existed) ever defeated armies of men. So if an army of men is better than an army of women how does adding women to the all male army make it better? Combat is the greatest test of courage, bravery, savagery, physical endurance and strength. It is a life and death struggle that may even include hand to hand combat (which has happened in Iraq). So obviously Ranger school must be tough if it is designed to test the mettle of those who desire to engage an enemy in ground combat. Two women got through the training. Many men did not. I see a sports analogy here. Football is not as brutal or as cruel as is combat, but it requires many of the same attributes as the warrior; physical strength, resistance to injury, courage, willingness to take risks, etc. Some women can pass Ranger training but I see NO women passing the physical requirements to make ANY college level football team (or baseball, basketball, rugby, etc.). It is harder for a woman to make these teams than it is to make the Army Ranger team! I would go so far as to say that fewer girls can make a good high school football team than can make the Ranger team. How do I know? I live in Phoenix, AZ. a city of almost 5 million people with a very robust high school football tradition. If any girls played on these teams they would be all over the news. There are none. Take the best female athlete in the world and put her on any college football, baseball, basketball or rugby team. Would she make any of these teams better? NO! Why? Because there are NO women playing on any of these teams, that’s why! If any woman could throw a 100 mph fastball she would be playing in the big leagues. If any woman was 6’4″, weighed 250lbs, could bench press 300 lbs and run a 5 second 40 yard dash she would be playing with men in football. Heck if she was my size, 6′ tall, 200 pounds could bench press 300lbs and run a sub 5 second 40 she could easily make most high school football teams…but she doesn’t exist. The sports analogy is an important one because it exposes the colossal physical differences between men and women. Many women can hike further than me, beat me in tennis, or swim farther than me but I haven’t met a woman who can carry more than me or physically overpower me…and I am 62 years old. And we haven’t even begun to talk about the sexual dynamics involved when mixing young high testosterone men with young, fit, attractive and fertile young women. Men behave kinder and gentler when among women and naturally compete for women to whom they are attracted. How is making men “kinder and gentler” good thing in a combat situation? We haven’t begun to touch on issues of preferential treatment of females in the military from lax discipline, punishment for infractions, and nondeployability because of medical problems or injury (which women suffer from at a much higher rate than men). So a woman wants to be a Ranger even if her presence detracts from the military mission; she doesn’t care. All she cares about is herself, her career goals and to hell with having a better fighting force. If women want to fight do what sports has done to reflect the physical differences: give women their own all female combat units. Put them into combat situations and see how they perform vs. all male combat units. Alas! Surveys have been done of women who want to serve in the infantry and they do not want to serve in all female units; they feel safer and more effective integrated with all male units. This proves my point: if all male combat units are better than all female then how does adding women to a male unit make it better? It doesn’t!