Posted on 06/13/2012 4:27:11 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
Competition to attend the course is fierce, with about 4,000 men eligible to attend each year. Only about half graduate. Of those, only 20% make it through without having to retake various phases. For decades, completion of Ranger School has been the best indicator for determining which young men can handle the enormous responsibility of combat leadership.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Maybe I am chauvinist or chivalrous, but I believe that it is the duty of men to defend one’s nation and family. I also believe that there are differences between men and women that standards of performance do not measure.
I don’t give a crap about career progression for females or males.
I don’t care about the traditions of infantry, armor, or artillery.
I could care less about the Ranger ethos.
I care about winning the wars that confront and will confront the United States of America.
Period.
In my many years in the Army, I ran into some really fine female officers, warrants, nco’s, and junior enlisted. I mean they were exceptional in many ways.
However, and this includes the most athletic female officer I ever met, a young woman at a major military school, they weren’t able to hang physically with the same standards as the guys. What this means is that you can go ahead and drop her to capture an airfield in enemy territory, but you better pray she never has to do in-close combat or haul or lift anything heavy. She would fail her troops and she would probably die.
And you better not load her down with as much gear and ammo as the other rangers carry.
If the issue is winning wars, then decisions should be based on what enhances chances of battlefield success.
My son is a brand new Ranger. He completed the first phase, now called RASP (Ranger Assessment and Selection Program), which lasted 8 weeks. By the way, if that sounds weird to anyone, the army changed RIP to RASP recently. He now needs to deploy and then go through the Ranger school fondly referred to as “62 days of hell” to complete the program and get his Ranger “tab”. He is hoping to get there as fast as possible before they monkey with the program and lower the bar. He wants to be a “real” Ranger. Does that attitude tell you something about how soldiers feel about the new proposal and what they think will happen once women are let in?
I couldn't have said it better.
If a woman can make it through an elite military training course, then she deserves to be there. If, on the other hand, they have to lower the requirements, then she only endangers the safety of the others that she serves with.
I had AIT with women soldiers back in the 80’s and it was causing problems even then. One of them started an affair with one of the Sgts and the Sgt got booted out with career ruined. Nothing happened to her.
Appropriate re-post from a close friend of mine, a true American patriot and warrior (touches on women in combat).
Remembering D-Day, June 6, 1944
When in 1998 I saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, it moved me to tears. Since I was born in 1935, I was only a kid during World War II, but not so young that I didn’t realize what was going on. Growing up during that era forever left me with an abiding admiration for a generation of Americans who not only endured the Great Depression, but also unflinchingly stepped forward to do their duty when our country called.
As a young United States Air Force officer I was stationed in France only a few hours driving time from the beaches at Normandy. Early on a June morning in 1961, I drove to the site where seventeen years earlier the Allied Forces of Operation Overlord had landed. As the sun rose over Omaha Beach, the hair on the back of my neck literally stood on end as I gazed in awe at the utterly devastating field-of-fire commanded from a crumbling German bunker. Some nineteen years later, I would experience this same profound sensation as I stood atop the hill, Little Round Top, at the Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania.
Later in 1962, while flying along the Normandy coast at low altitude, I was presenting what I thought to be a noteworthy historical tour to my navigator, a major who looked “pretty old” to me. Flying west from the British and Canadian beaches of Sword, Juno and Gold, I pointed out a 100 foot cliff named Pointe du Hoc that lay between the American beaches of Omaha and Utah. After describing the remarkable D-Day assault up its near vertical face by U.S. Army Rangers, I said something to the effect, “Can you imagine how tough that must have been?” My navigator replied, “Yes, I can”, then simply added, “On June 6, 1944 I was nineteen years old. I was a private in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and I went over the top.” Realizing that the man with whom I now flew was one of only ninety Rangers who survived the hand-over-hand climb up the shear rock face, my historical rhetoric suddenly seemed pitifully inadequate… while my navigator no longer seemed old, but somehow about two feet taller.
Only the men who were on those beaches over a half-century ago are truly qualified to comment on the authenticity of the movie. Those with whom I have spoken say that it is pretty damn close. It is a film without joy that bluntly depicts the documented horrors of a single nine-day period of combat as it really happened. If nothing else, perhaps it will help to dissuade the utterly silly notion that women should be placed in combat.
I was openly touched by this movie not only because of the profound sadness of the situations portrayed, but also because of a nostalgic remembrance of a time when duty, honor and country came first. When dodging the draft was a disgrace, character was a cherished virtue, and individuals took personal responsibility for their actions.
If you never thanked a WW II veteran for what they did, now might be a good time. There are still a lot of them among us, but they are a dying breed, and when they’re gone America will be a lesser place. We shall not likely see their likes again.
Well stated.
Men and women are not the same; they don't think, act or emote the same. All this nonsense about “same” physical standards is nonsense. What matters is the innate aggression that resides in males (testosterone).
Media and other “equal rights” advocates mock it as chest-thumping behavior and they don't recognize it as warrior behavior. Women can be mean but true aggression is lacking, and after a career in the military I am tired of the empty argument that say, "well, if they can meet the same physical standards. . .". That is NOT the most important aspect. Natural agression is.
Women in the military ACT like they are all hoorah and aggressive but acting is not being. It is an act.
The feminine side is always repressed and hidden in warrior environments, therefore females deny their own femininity when they enter the warrior world. That is not natural.
Born the same year. Only served in the Guard for 8 years. Was discharged before the Berlin situation. However, you are right on. Had relatives who served in Anzio, June 6, 1944 and one who was a guard at the Nueremburg Trials. Their stories, if you could ever pry it out of them were devastating. The difference between then and now is the tremendous amount of respect that was held for Women as compared to today when they are pictured as deprived of opportunity. All negative.
I thank him for his service to our country.
You must be commended for raising such a fine son.
” The military is no longer primarily about defending the country.
It’s about forcing PC social change down our throats.”
Exactly.
************************
It's all a part of the liberal/communist/marxist agenda that is affecting (poisoning) every part of our lives today.
"So if there's one message I want to send to parents today, it's this: we have a voice. We have a voice.
And when we come together and use that voice, we can change the way companies do business.
We can change the way Congress makes laws.
We can transform our schools and our neighborhoods and our cities."~Michelle Obama
too bad he didn’t get in back when they wore black berets and not everyone got to wear a beret.
better now than later. at this rate, he could end up with a chick as his platoon leader.
still wouldn’t matter to me. until they have to sign up for the draft, they’re just playing war.
count the body bags and tell me they’re “equal”. then we can have an apples to apples comparison rather than apples to kotex.
Thank you, I AM very proud.
He just got his black beret last week.
Congrats to him.
I hope he soon gets a new Commander in Chief.
There is no draft. And yes, if women want true equality of opportunity in the military, they should have to register with the Selective Service.
THAT MAKES 3 OF US!!!!
OOPS! He got his TAN beret last week. They give everyone a black beret these days. The Airbourne gets maroon and Rangers get tan.
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