[...]
For those who aren’t familiar with the course, it is 61-days of intense
stress, sleep deprivation, lack of food and any other item that could
conceivably make life at the bottom of Maslow’s Heirarchy not a
challenge, and general suck. The graduation rate is a [deleted]-hair
above 50% but this masks the fact that 37% of all graduates have to
repeat at least one phase. So 61-days is really a best case and most
graduates spend closer to 75-days in the course. One of my officers
started the course three times before finally completing it as
distinguished honor graduate.
One hardly knows what the Army was thinking. If physical standards
aren’t radically changed for women, and Bruce Jenner isn’t in the
class, human physiology in terms of muscle mass, weight, bone
structure, and upper body strength indicate that few, if any,
birth-women (I guess we have to start using this now to be clear) can
pass the program. Personally, I was betting the Army would fold like a
cheap suit. When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says:
“Importantly, though, if we do decide that a particular standard is so
high that a woman couldn’t make it, the burden is now on the service to
come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high? Does it
really have to be that high?”
The
remaining eight female Ranger School candidates failed the first phase
of the U.S. Army’s elite infantry program, the Army said in a statement
late Friday.
Of the eight women, five were kicked out of training. Three others will
be allowed to start over from the beginning of the first phase of
Ranger School. Those three will start class on June 21.
The Army said in a statement that 29 students failed to meet the
standards of phase one, also known as the Darby Phase. A vast majority
of the students who are being dropped from the course were unable to
successfully lead a patrol. All students received multiple
opportunities to lead a patrol as a squad or team leader, the Army said.
And, of course, the reason we would be questioning that is that any
woman’s career is much more important than any number of bodies left
strewn about a battlefield.
Much to my surprise, the Ranger cadre have held firm to the
macro-standards. Of the 19 women in the first class, eleven did not
complete the first four days, the Ranger Assessment Program — what used
to be known as City Phase, of the course. At the end of the Darby
Phase, the remaining eight women were recycled having failed to meet
the standard necessary to move on to Mountain Phase at Camp Frank D.
Merrill in Dahlonega, Georgia. At the end of the recycle period, five
of the remaining eight women were dropped from the course. Three were
allowed to start with a new class from Day One. This would entail
retaking the Ranger Assessment Program.
[The full SNAFU]
