A password will be e-mailed to you.
Hide from Public

Strategic Outpost

35 Years, Two Rangers, and the End of the Brass Ceiling

and
September 8, 2015

America's military services are set to open the combat arms to women, which will allow female officers to ascend to the highest ranks of the U.S. military. But will the Marine Corps follow suit?

We had a front row seat to history on August 21, when we witnessed two West Point graduates become the first women ever to graduate from the Army’s grueling 62-day Ranger School. Captain Kristen Griest and Lieutenant Shaye Haver pinned on their hard-won black and gold Ranger tabs at Fort Benning in front of a capacity crowd marked by an abundance of female West Pointers. Their milestone achievement has forever changed the debate about whether women are suited for ground combat roles and may finally break the brass ceiling that has long limited opportunities for women in the military.

It is not surprising that the first two women to successfully complete Ranger School graduated from the U.S. Military Academy. Griest, a military police officer, is a member of the class of 2011, and Haver, an Apache pilot, graduated in 2013. Both stood on the shoulders of the first women who joined West Point’s long gray line, and they faced the same sort of intense skepticism and scrutiny in breaking new ground for women as did their academy forbearers.

Congress directed all the service academies to admit qualified women in 1975. The first women entered the academies in the summer of 1976, and the first female graduates received their diplomas in 1980. This year marks the 35th anniversary of that monumental accomplishment, which cracked the military’s brass ceiling by assuring that the academies that produced such historic military leaders as Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, and Nimitz now included women as well.

Yet at the time, many service academy graduates were intensely skeptical of the decision to admit women. Some felt that standards had been lowered to bring in women, and others simply believed that women had no business in jobs that had been previously held by men. One of us graduated from West Point in 1976, the last class to finish four years when the Corps of Cadets included no women. He did not meet a female West Point graduate until 1986, during a staff tour in Washington. Prepared to be intensely skeptical, he walked away so impressed that his entire outlook on female West Pointers changed overnight. (The female officer was Anne Macdonald, who was part of that historic class of 1980; she went on to be the Army’s first woman to command an aviation brigade and retired in 2011 as a Brigadier General.) Sometime later, he heard a grizzled infantry three-star general express grudging admiration about how women West Point graduates had impressed the entire military leadership during their first decade in service.

In the past 35 years, women service academy graduates have been top performers throughout the military, often piercing all-male organizations and shattering long-held notions about which roles in the military women could successfully fill. The first female graduates from the early 1980s now populate the uppermost ranks of military leadership. Admiral Michelle Howard, for example, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1982 and became the Navy’s first female four-star admiral in 2014. She now serves as the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. General Janet Wolfenbarger was one of the first women to graduate from the U.S Air Force Academy in 1980. She became the first female four-star Air Force general in 2012 and commanded the Air Force Material Command until her retirement earlier this summer. Many more women are following behind them.

Despite these achievements, the ultimate bar to women’s advancement in the military has always been their exclusion from the ground combat arms — infantry, armor, artillery, and special operations forces (including Navy SEALs and the Army’s Green Berets). For the Army and Marine Corps in particular, senior leaders come almost exclusively from these specialties, all of which have traditionally been closed to women.

That bar is set to fall on January 1, when the ground combat exclusion policy will expire and all military specialties will be open to women for the very first time. The services have until October 1 to submit any requests for exception to policy — to ask for exemptions that would permit keeping certain specialties or units closed to women. After last month’s Ranger School graduation, that will be an extraordinarily difficult argument to make.

Two women Rangers clearly overcoming the arduous physical demands long touted as barriers to women serving in ground combat roles will effectively end the debate as to whether women are up to the physical and mental demands that duty in infantry, armor, or special operations requires. Most men in those combat specialties are not Ranger school graduates — and, frankly, many could not make it through the notoriously rigorous demands of the school, which markedly exceed the requirements of serving in ground combat positions. In the past few years, only 42 percent of the men who started Ranger School have graduated.

But the success of Griest and Haver was not just about mastering the physical strength required to do dozens of pushups or “ruck up” with heavy weapons, radios, and rucksacks night after night across rugged mountains or through hip-deep swamps. It was about women as exceptional teammates. As the press conference the day before August’s Ranger School graduation made clear, these women had made themselves indispensible components of their teams. They were leaders and strong Ranger buddies. They not only carried their loads, but then volunteered to take on even heavier loads from men in their platoons who were utterly spent — and who could find no other volunteers among their male colleagues. Their peer evaluations from squad mates confirmed the value they brought to their small teams and the immense regard in which they were held by their male peers. They were highly valued team members who consistently put the group’s welfare over their own.

Last week, the Army announced that Ranger School is now permanently open to men and women of all specialties. How many more women will graduate from Ranger School and when that will happen remains unknown. But the premise that women can compete successfully against physical and endurance standards of the Army’s toughest small-unit leadership course — solely the province of men since 1951 — is now indisputable. Upcoming Ranger classes will soon pit their male and female students up against winter’s onslaught of rain and cold in place of the summer’s brutal heat and sun. It is possible that few or none of the women who volunteer for the next few classes will make it through successfully. But there will certainly be more female Rangers in the years if not months to come as more women start training earlier and earlier to follow in the successful footsteps of Rangers Griest and Haver. The pipeline of women now wanting to attend will stretch for years, including some just now starting West Point or joining the Army — and younger girls who dream of doing so someday.

The October 1 deadline for the services to request exceptions to keep certain ground combat specialties closed to women is fast approaching. Griest and Haver have just demonstrated that it is no longer possible to make that case on its objective merits. Recent reporting suggests that the Army, Navy, and Air Force are unlikely to request any exceptions to keep women out of their ground combat forces, including special operations units.

The only apparent outlier is the Marine Corps, which is struggling with deep-seated institutional and cultural problems in allowing women to serve in its infantry formations. An argument that insists that Marine infantry must remain closed to women within a joint force that allows women to qualify as SEALs, Rangers, and Army infantry soldiers will be a very hard sell, as recent statements by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus have already indicated. If the Marines do request any exceptions, they should be rejected based upon on their now-obvious lack of credible merit.

The decision to open all military specialties to women is not simply or even primarily an equity issue. Integrating women into all military specialties will ensure that the U.S. military becomes a stronger and more capable organization. The past 35 years have demonstrated that women add immense talent and value to every military organization in which they serve, from four-star generals to lance corporals. As the United States hurtles into an unpredictable world of fast-changing conflicts, bringing every ounce of skilled talent to bear on winning those wars with the least cost in blood and treasure must be an essential component of American strategy. Future wars will be won by the side possessing the most innovative brainpower and the most skilled teams of talent — not just those with the biggest biceps.

Griest and Haver may have finally broken the brass ceiling that the first female service academy graduates cracked 35 years ago. Much like their West Point sisters of the class of 1980, they have clearly demonstrated that women can successfully accomplish even the toughest physical and mental tasks. And their remarkable individual achievements have made it far more likely that the military will remove the last formal barriers to women’s full advancement — a long-awaited decision that will inexorably strengthen the U.S. military and the nation’s future security.

 

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. Both also serve as Nonresident Senior Fellows at the Atlantic Council. Their column appears in War on the Rocks every other Tuesday.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

12 thoughts on “35 Years, Two Rangers, and the End of the Brass Ceiling”

  1. BOHICA…wading through the PC sludge doled out by leftist policy wonks it is a wonder that anybody in the DOD hasn’t drowned in it yet. Oh wait…they have.

    So, women now have to sign up for the draft right? Aww, why not? What’s the hold up?

  3. The degree to which standards have been lowered or changed, to say nothing of the separate physical fitness standards, in every branch of the military to go coed (and this applies to the service academies too) is the cause of the skepticism that Griest and Haver, who were both third try retreads, didn’t get cut some slack in Ranger School. It would be interesting to know, for example, whether, in the widely publicized photo of Griest carry another soldier fire-man style, she picked him up from the ground, and also how long she carried him. In civilian firefighting, women have almost without exception failed this task, and Griest and Haver don’t look particularly big or strong. Vice Admiral Michelle Howard, who has one of the thinnest resumes ever for a VCNO, is a tiny woman whom would not be able to evacuate a casualty in a ship even when she was in her physical prime. For the record, she sees all problems with a coed navy to be the result of insufficient numbers and is aggressively campaigning for quotas.

    Let’s say, though, that Griest and Haver made it through Ranger School without being cut any slack. Data suggests 1-2% of military women can perform to the level of the average (in military terms) male. To argue that this proves that there is a flood of women able to meet this standard is absurd. Women will remain outliers in tiny numbers – far lower than currently the case – if standards are fairly applied. That will not lead to acceptance. It will lead to them being seen as exceptions, and when judged by male standards, not very exceptional individuals at that. White Knight boosters such as the article’s authors won’t change that.

    Until boosters of women in the military honestly address the data, the costs, and the actual performance to date, those of us who disagree will continue to think poorly of them and dismiss their arguments. That’s because between the claimed achievements/performance and the documented physical data/standards, something just doesn’t add up.

  4. Yet again, the illusion of “Well they passed the school house so everything must be ok” is held up as proof. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The issue of women in combat is the next in the line of PC nonsense that has done nothing but weaken the combat arms portions of each service. Women can serve in any branch of the United States military and have proven their value consistently. Women without combat service have risen to the top of every service and continue to excel in multiple areas. The issue of women in combat arms is one that is far more complicated than “the brass ceiling.” The arguments concerning promotions, “fairness” and “opportunities” are an attempt to “gender norm” the military services. Even if a female officer or enlisted women can “pass” class standards (less than 1%) for areas such as infantry, armor, artillery and special forces, to what end? How does that make the pointed end of the spear of the U.S. military better? At what cost is this grand social experiment going to require of our most aggressive and combat hardened forces? I for one, after 30 years of service in the USMC, am sick and tired of our services being forced into social experiments for the sake of political correctness. None of this has made our combat forces any more effective and risks reducing our ability to win wars for the sake of “equality and fairness.” Who will bear the responsibility and be held accountable if even one infantryman or special operator dies because of this PC nonsense? I would love to see who steps forward to accept the responsibility!
    Colonel Davenport – USMC (Ret.)

    1. Indeed. Graduating the Ranger course, as commendable as this is….for anyone….is not the same as leading 22 Infantry Soldiers or Marines…..male or female….in a combat environment.

  5. Knowing Dave Barno and have great respect for him I had to read this article twice. The article is filled with great examples of the success of women in the Army; I also served with BG(R) Ann Macdonald but none of that equates to serving day in and day out in peace and war in a combat infantry battalion.. DOD and the Army have all the data on the physical fitness issues associated with women serving in formerly all male military occupational specialties. Some injury rates are up to 110% more than men. One Army study cited in a recent National Review Article found that in Operation Iraqi Freedom women were twice as likely to suffer from non-combat related disease and injuries and a twice as likely to be medivace’d out of the theater of operations. A quick review of the non-deployment rates shows a three to four times higher rate for women. I lived through this as the commander of the 25th Infantry Division during my deployment to Iraq 2006 to 2007. I have the greatest respect for what women have done to improve are Army. There comes a point where senior leaders must ensure that combat readiness is not effected and we are not putting soldiers at unnecessary risk.

  6. job by the two women who graduated from ranger training. By meeting the established standards, they have now set the bar at a high level. Opening the now closed parts of the military, is the right thing to do. But, to meet the standards to become a Seal, or operational Ranger Battalion member, or Marine infantry, or Spec OPS member will not be easy. If there are women who can meet the standards and become qualified for those jobs now closed, good on them. But nary a dissenting voice should be raised if those women or men who apply don’t make it. The two women who graduated from Ranger school have proven there metal against the established standards. Those who volunteer for the operational jobs, will be required to meet those specific job standards, and it’s not going to be easy. Two women have met the standard and those women who follow will be compared to them. No more should the discussion be separate standards……..for any job. These two “lead the way”……..now all that apply (men and women) for now closed jobs have to measure up. As my grandaddy always said…be careful what you wish for!

  7. I am still waiting to here why those two women needed a Major General to be their designated “Walker” when that has never previously occurred in the entire history of Ranger School.

  8. “The only apparent outlier is the Marine Corps, which is struggling with deep-seated institutional and cultural problems in allowing women to serve in its infantry formations.” Where is the objectivity in this statement? Or in this article?
    It appears that both authors lack knowledge with respect to the Marine Corps culture. Are either of them true “experts” of Marine Corps culture? I suspect not, but if so, then what references do they site which lead to such a conclusive statement? It would seem that they are ignoring documented facts and testimony from Marines. Former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Amos once spoke to us at the War College and stated “we are trying to figure out how best to integrate women into the combat arms without breaking them.” He went on to state that it seemed possible with some of the weapons platforms, but not so promising for infantry.
    Testimony from combat puts this concern in perspective. Marine Captain Petronio was very clear on her personal experience in combat and her conclusion based on that experience. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/12/12684555-women-in-the-infantry-forget-about-it-says-female-marine-officer?lite
    The most telling data are those volumes of medical reports from our recent combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though women were not in infantry units, their high percentage of injuries and even higher percentage of ‘sick-call’ visits just confirms that intuition which the Marine Corps has developed.
    The true reason the Marine Corps is an outlier is that they are the ONLY Service that used a well-controlled and documented study to determine how best to integrate, and if integrated, the efficacy of those integrated infantry units. This study was objective, thorough, and comprehensive; providing scientifically irrefutable analysis. The facts clearly speak for themselves.
    These authors choose to ignore the volumes of conclusive scientific studies, many of which had been conducted by the Army. For instance, the joint study between the US Army and IDF between 2003-2005 which address the performance of the average male and average female soldier while having to conduct standard infantry tasks. Detailed analysis was conducted on bone density, muscle mass, muscle type, cardiovascular capability and other physiological attributes. The conclusion was that women were not capable of handling the standard combat loads for any reasonable amount of time without incurring a much higher injury rate when compared to their male counterparts. Israeli infantry commanders get it (a good read if you have the time: “Lochamot Betzahal” by Col. (res.) Raza Sagi, former infantry regiment commander)
    Injuries that pull soldiers or Marines from the front lines, regardless of how they occur, are a “win” for our enemies. The Marine Corps recognizes this and chooses not to begin a fight with a handicap. It’s too bad that these authors fail to understand that which they write about.
    “opinion, untempered by fact is ignorance”