Rangers are NOT leading the way

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10 years 11 months ago #33747 by OleCowboy
Rangers are NOT leading the way was created by OleCowboy
Rangers are NOT leading the way
BY THOMAS E. RICKS JANUARY 16, 2014

By Col. Ellen Haring, U.S. Army Reserve
Best Defense guest columnist
January 24, 2014 marks the one-year anniversary of the elimination of the military's official policy that kept women from accessing nearly a quarter of a million military jobs. So, what has changed for military women in the past year? Not a lot. The military services and Special Operations Command were given three years to open up all positions or to request, by exception, to keep some positions closed. So far, no requests have been made to keep any positions closed, but few positions have actually been opened.
On July 2, 2013, a 7th Infantry Division (ID) operations order encouraged soldiers to apply for the Army's Ranger School. According to the order that went to all soldiers in a subordinate intelligence brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McCord, the unit is looking to "increase Soldier leadership skills across the Brigade". There is one catch to this leadership opportunity. Women still need not apply.
According to the Army's Ranger training brigade website, Rangers are soldiers who are highly trained in the principles of leadership and individual combat skills. "Graduates return to their units to pass on these skills." The website outlines the physical and mental qualifications required to attend this leadership course. Ranger School accepts servicemen from all services and all specialties. The single qualifying distinction is that all men are eligible but not one woman is eligible regardless of her mental and physical qualifications. Male chaplains and doctors attend Ranger School but women fighter pilots, military police, artillery, and engineer soldiers are excluded.
When Army leaders are asked why women are excluded from Ranger School, the answer is that Ranger School is a sourcing mechanism for the Ranger Regiment and Ranger billets and since women aren't assigned to these positions they don't need to attend Ranger School. This is a grossly disingenuous answer and is refuted by the evidence. Even before the combat exclusion policy that prohibited women from serving in combat units was lifted, Ranger School was widely understood to be a leadership course and many men who undertake the course have no intention of joining the Ranger Regiment and are never assigned to a Ranger billet. The soldiers that the 7th ID intelligence brigade was recruiting were not headed to a Ranger unit. They were expected to return to their intelligence brigade and use their newly acquired skills to improve their units.
Furthermore, Ranger School completion becomes a performance evaluation discriminator in the minds of many operational commanders. As a member of a chaplain's promotion board recently observed, chaplains who wear the storied Ranger tab are consistently rated higher than their non-Ranger qualified peers. Ranger School may make these chaplains better leaders or it may simply be that they are perceived to be better leaders as a result of being Ranger qualified. Regardless of the reason, women who are never afforded the opportunity to attend Ranger School are at a disadvantage when compared to their Ranger-qualified peers.
Women attend and graduate from the challenging Air Assault and Airborne courses. Some go on to become High Altitude, Low Opening (HALO) parachute jump masters. Women become Pathfinders where they are dropped into remote locations and navigate through harsh terrain to establish day and night landing zones to facilitate follow-on forces. In recent years, women became Sappers after completing the grueling month-long Sapper course. Sappers are soldiers who are trained in navigation and demolition techniques and are often inserted behind enemy lines. These are tough schools and the Army has managed to include women in all of them with no degradation of standards.
It has been one year since the combat exclusion policy was lifted but women are still excluded from Ranger School. This should have been one of the easy openings. Ranger School has long had well defined entry and graduation requirements. There is no need to either validate or establish non-existent standards. Standards already exist. Just open the school and let women compete on an equal footing with men. Opening Ranger School now will give women the opportunity to prove that they are soldiers capable of any test. It will put to bed any lingering doubts about whether or not women can serve in the combat arms. If women can graduate from Ranger school, then surely they can capably serve in combat units.
Ellen Haring in a West Point graduate and a colonel in the Army Reserve. She is a senior fellow at Women in International Security.

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10 years 11 months ago #33750 by MrMarty51
Replied by MrMarty51 on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
I say, let them women attend Ranger School, but, I am still not in favor of allowing women to serve in certain combat situations, where capture may be possible.
Armies have trortured men soldiers throughout the ages, I could not imagine what kinds of torture would be administered to captured women soldiers.
These new legions of terrorists seems to really enjoy such activities too.

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10 years 11 months ago #33751 by Siscowet
Replied by Siscowet on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way

MrMarty51 wrote: I say, let them women attend Ranger School, but, I am still not in favor of allowing women to serve in certain combat situations, where capture may be possible.
Armies have trortured men soldiers throughout the ages, I could not imagine what kinds of torture would be administered to captured women soldiers.
These new legions of terrorists seems to really enjoy such activities too.

:I-agree:
Let them show what they can do.

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10 years 11 months ago #33752 by faawrenchbndr
Replied by faawrenchbndr on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
I'm all for it!
If the woman can pass the same standards, good for her. Combat, sure. Gets equal treatment as a man. Gets captured, that is all on her.

I would, however, not agree to any women being included in any drafts

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10 years 11 months ago #33756 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
Sorry guys I cannot agree. This question is truly a 2 sided coin.

Can I agree that IF women can pass the test they should be able to attend. YES!!!! BUT ONLY if its the same test as the men and the test has not been dumbed down.

Now we get to PAGE 2 as Paul Harvey used to say. This is the monumental challenge of mixing the sexes in a unit(s) that has not time for it.

A few years ago the argument was "well Israel has mixed combat units"...I just got back from Israel and NO they don't, it DID NOT WORK!. Do they have women combat units, YES! but men and women, no, it failed on the battlefield. And its failed everywhere it has ever been tried thru history.

But then don't ask me, after all I was just some Pfc turned Major, lets ask a GENERAL OFFICER. General Petraeus.

Sir, can you come over here and tell us about this: Extramarital affair and resignation[edit]
Main article: Petraeus scandal


David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell in July 2011
According to Petraeus associate Steven A. Boylan, Petraeus began an affair with Paula Broadwell, principal author of his biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, in late 2011 when he was no longer an active duty military officer. Petraeus reportedly ended the affair in the summer of 2012, around the time that he learned that Broadwell had been sending harassing emails to a longstanding family friend of the Petraeuses, Jill Kelley.[175]

Kelley, a Florida socialite who frequently entertained senior military personnel at her and her husband's Tampa mansion,[176] had approached an acquaintance who worked for the FBI Tampa Field Office in the late spring with regard to anonymous emails she considered threatening.[175] The Bureau traced the emails to Broadwell, and noted that Broadwell appeared to be exchanging intimate messages with an email account belonging to Petraeus, which instigated an investigation into whether that account had been hacked into or was someone posing as Petraeus.[177][178][179] According to an Associated Press report, rather than transmit emails to each other's inbox, which would have left a more obvious email trail, Petraeus and Broadwell left messages in a draft folder and the draft messages were then read by the other person when they logged into the same account.[180]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus


Folks if you think this is rare or unusual, then you are dreaming...."I did not have sex with that woman" Commander in Chief and President of the US, Bill Clinton

and there is not enough time or room to list all or even 1% of battles and wars lost over a woman in the foxhole...

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10 years 11 months ago #33762 by faawrenchbndr
Replied by faawrenchbndr on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
No where did I say that it would work,........I only stated that I am for women in combat.

In aircraft maintenance, I saw about 5% of the women in my 20+ years that could keep up with men.

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10 years 11 months ago #33768 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
First off I don't care for the title of the thread, they are leading the way, leading the way in standing firm on what they think will be effective. That said, let women go to school and get a tab if they can, just don't make any exceptions in the standards. I'm betting most will opt out in a week or less.
I would strongly disagree with letting them into battalions, I guess they just call it the regiment now. The nature of the situation would put everyone at risk, Rangers leave no one behind and always have there Ranger buddies back. Anyone thinking that involving women in this will not have a bearing on combat effectiveness is just living in a fantasy world.
There is a big difference between wearing a Ranger tab and being a Ranger, lets keep it that way.
RANGERS LEAD THE WAY, ALL THE WAY Sua Sponte :usa:

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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 11 months ago #33769 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
I just cauhgt this article about gender discrimination on the DOT news site;

www.kgw.com/news/WSDOT-says-discriminati...women-240105111.html

Wonder how this lawsuit will work out?????? I'm betting they will be declared discriminated against regardless of the study. Can't anyone just see the sexes are different and celebrate that :dance:
Last edit: 10 years 11 months ago by jtallen83.

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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 11 months ago #33779 by SOC
Replied by SOC on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
9 years army, first four as a 19D with 4ID 1-68 Armour, last 5 as a 11B2P in the 82nd after shattering an ankle trying to get selected for 18 series.

IMHO there should be no restrictions at all on women in any combat role of any kind.

1. One standard applied to both sexes no exceptions.

2. Women need to preform minimal weekly hygiene for obvious heath reasons. Men can get away for a month and sometimes longer.

Dealing with # 2 is very simple. Add a generic hygiene pack to MREs. I'm not talking about maxi-pads and tampons but a small pack of "baby wipes" would do just fine. Make the wipes out of the right material (thicker softer) and when dried out could be cut and used as a pad if needed.

Would beat the hell out of the tiny folded squares of TP that are often is soaked by that little bottle of tabasco sauce.
Last edit: 10 years 11 months ago by SOC.

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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 11 months ago #33834 by txlongshotb4
Replied by txlongshotb4 on topic Rangers are NOT leading the way
First off I don't care for the title of the thread, they are leading the way, leading the way in standing firm on what they think will be effective. That said, let women go to school and get a tab if they can, just don't make any exceptions in the standards. I'm betting most will opt out in a week or less.
I would strongly disagree with letting them into battalions, I guess they just call it the regiment now. The nature of the situation would put everyone at risk, Rangers leave no one behind and always have there Ranger buddies back. Anyone thinking that involving women in this will not have a bearing on combat effectiveness is just living in a fantasy world.
There is a big difference between wearing a Ranger tab and being a Ranger, lets keep it that way.
RANGERS LEAD THE WAY, ALL THE WAY Sua Sponte :usa:

I'm gonna have to agree with this man. my only caveat to this is log drills, where if one person is weaker than the others, then the others pay for it...and I'm not too sure how the whole hand to hand part in the dust pit would work out-R.Is don't like to see candidates pulling punches, and most of us have been taught not to beat n women...hmmmm. no, I'm just not to cool with this.

Definitely not in Batt or Regiment. Not only is it a combat unit-it is a high intensity combat unit that has little time for B.S. If it aint' broke, don't fix it. Perhaps that isn't fair, but then again, fair has no place in line when you are expected to be the finest combat Infantry force on the planet.

There are some other points I could mention here-about the harsh reality of what happens when you mix grunts, women and beer-a situation that would inevitably occur...but that would CERTAINLY offend someone here, so I'll just call it sufficient to say that it would be a disaster of epic proportions, and given the parties involved, might actually spawn the Anti Christ.
Last edit: 10 years 11 months ago by txlongshotb4.

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