Latest news with #RangerSchool
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Should women be in combat?
Women weren't allowed to officially serve in combat jobs when Emelie Vanasse started her ROTC program at George Washington University. Instead, she used her biology degree to serve as a medical officer — but it still bothered Vanasse to be shut out of something just because she was a woman. 'I always felt like, who really has the audacity to tell me that I can't be in combat arms? I'm resilient, I am tough, I can make decisions in stressful environments,' Vanasse said. By 2015, the Obama administration opened all combat jobs to women, despite a plea from senior leaders in the Marine Corps to keep certain frontline units male only. Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters that, 'We cannot afford to cut ourselves off from half the country's talents and skills.' The policy change meant that women could attend Ranger school, the training ground for the Army Rangers, an elite special operations infantry unit. When Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver became the first women to graduate from the school in 2015, Vanasse taped their photos to her desk and swore she would be next, no matter what it took. She went on to become one of the first women to serve as an Army infantry officer and graduated from Ranger school in 2017. After the Pentagon integrated women into combat jobs, the services developed specific fitness standards for jobs like infantry and armor with equal standards for men and women. Special operations and other highly specialized units require additional qualification courses that are also gender-neutral. To continue past the first day of Ranger school, candidates must pass the Ranger Physical Fitness test, for which there is only one standard. Only the semi-annual fitness tests that service members take, which vary by branch, are scaled for age and gender. Despite that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has continued to insist that the standards were lowered for combat roles. In a podcast interview in November, Hegseth said, 'We've changed the standards in putting [women in combat], which means you've changed the capability of that unit.' (Despite Hegseth's remark, many women worked alongside male infantry units in Iraq and Afghanistan, facing the same dangerous conditions.) In the same interview, Hegseth said that he didn't believe women should serve in combat roles. In March, Hegseth ordered the military services to make the basic fitness standards for all combat jobs gender-neutral. The Army is the first service to comply: Beginning June 1, most combat specialties will require women to meet the male standard for basic physical fitness, something most women serving in active-duty combat roles are already able to do. Vanasse told Noel King on Today, Explained what it was like to attend Ranger School at a time when some men didn't want to see a woman in the ranks. What is Ranger School? I went to Ranger School on January 1, 2017. I woke up at 3 am that day in Fort Benning, Georgia, shaved my head, a quarter-inch all the way around, just like the men. Took my last hot shower, choked down some French toast, and then I drove to Camp Rogers, and I remember being very acutely aware of the pain that the school would inflict, both physically and mentally. I was also very aware that there was kind of half of this population of objective graders that just kind of hated my guts for even showing up. They hated you for showing up because you're a woman? Back in 2016 and 2017, it was so new to have women in Ranger School. I used to think, I don't have to just be good, I have to be lucky. I have to get a grader who is willing to let a woman pass. I had dark times at that school. I tasted real failure. I sat under a poncho in torrential rain and I shivered so hard my whole body cramped. I put on a ruck that weighed 130 pounds and I crawled up a mountain on my hands and knees. I hallucinated a donut shop in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains and I cried one morning when someone told me I had to get out of my sleeping bag. But I think all of those experiences are quintessential Ranger School experiences. They're what everyone goes through there. And I think the point of the school is that failure, that suffering, it's not inherently bad, right? In a way, I like to think Ranger School was the most simplistic form of gender integration that ever could have happened because if I was contributing to the team, there was no individual out there that really had the luxury of disliking or excluding me. When you wanted to give up, what did you tell yourself? What was going through your head? I don't think I ever considered quitting Ranger School. I just knew that it was something that I could get through and had the confidence to continue. I had a thought going in of What could be so bad that would make me quit? and the answer that I found throughout the school was, Nothing. Did you ever feel like they had lowered the standards for you compared to the men who were alongside you? No. Never. I did the same thing that the men did. I did the same Ranger physical fitness test that all the men took. I ran five miles in 40 minutes. I did 49 pushups, 59 situps, six pullups. I rucked 12 miles in three hours with a 45-pound ruck. I climbed the same mountains. I carried the same stuff. I carried the same exact packing list they did, plus 250 tampons for some reason. At no point were the standards lowered for me. Whose idea was it for you to carry 250 tampons? It was not mine! It was a misguided effort to have everyone very prepared for the first women coming through Ranger School. In Ranger School, there's only one standard for the fitness test. Everybody has to meet it, and that allows you to get out of Ranger School and say, 'Look, fellas, I took the same test as the men and I passed.' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is saying that Army combat jobs should only have one standard of fitness for both men and women. And there's part of me that thinks: Doesn't that allow the women who meet the standards to be like, look, I think gender-neutral standards for combat arms are very important. It should not be discounted how important physical fitness is for combat arms. I think there's nuance in determining what is a standard that is useful for combat arms, right? But it's an important thing. And there have been gender-neutral standards for combat arms. In things like Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, which is the initial basic training for officers going into the infantry, there are gender-neutral standards that you have to meet: You have to run five miles in 40 minutes, you have to do a 12-mile ruck. All of those standards have remained the same. Pete Hegseth is specifically referring to the Army Combat Physical Fitness test, and to a certain extent I agree, it should be gender-neutral for combat arms. But I think there's nuance in determining what exactly combat arms entails physically. Secretary Hegseth has a lot to say about women, and sometimes he says it directly and sometimes he alludes to it. What he often does is he talks about lethality as something that is critically important for the military. He says the Army in particular needs more of it, but he never really defines what he means by lethality. What is the definition as you understand it? There's a component of lethality that is physical fitness and it should not be discounted. But lethality extends far beyond that, right? It's tactical skills, it's decision-making, it's leadership, it's grit, it's the ability to build trust and instill purpose and a group of people. It's how quick a fire team in my platoon can react to contact. How well my SAW [Squad Automatic Weapon] gunner can shoot, how quickly I can employ and integrate combat assets, how fast I can maneuver a squad. All of those things take physical fitness, but they certainly take more than just physical fitness. There's more to lethality than just how fast you can run and how many pushups you can do. To an average civilian like myself, I hear lethality and I think of the dictionary definition, the ability to kill. Does this definition of lethality involve the ability, physically and emotionally and psychologically, to kill another person? Absolutely. And so when Secretary Hegseth casts doubt on the ability of women to be as lethal as men, do you think there's some stuff baked in there that maybe gets to his idea of what women are willing and able to do? Yes, possibly. I think the [secretary's] message is pretty clear. According to him, the women in combat arms achieved success because the standards were lowered for them. We were never accommodated and the standards were never lowered. What's your response, then, to hearing the Secretary of Defense say women don't belong in combat? It makes me irate, to be honest. Like, it's just a complete discounting of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us. Do you think that if Secretary Hegseth could take a look at what you did in Ranger School, and he could hear from you that there were no second chances, there were no excuses, there was no babying, the men didn't treat you nicer just because you were a woman, do you think he'd change his mind about women serving in combat? I'd like to think he would, but I've met plenty of people whose minds couldn't be changed by reality. I'd love it if he went to Ranger School. He has a lot of opinions about Ranger School for someone who does not have his Ranger tab. What is a Ranger tab, for civilians? A Ranger tab is what you receive upon graduating Ranger School, which means you have passed all three phases and you are now Ranger-qualified in the military. You have that. And the Secretary of Defense doesn't. He does not, though he has a lot of opinions about Ranger School.
Vox
3 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
Should women be in combat?
Women weren't allowed to officially serve in combat jobs when Emelie Vanasse started her ROTC program at George Washington University. Instead, she used her biology degree to serve as a medical officer — but it still bothered Vanasse to be shut out of something just because she was a woman. 'I always felt like, who really has the audacity to tell me that I can't be in combat arms? I'm resilient, I am tough, I can make decisions in stressful environments,' Vanasse said. By 2015, the Obama administration opened all combat jobs to women, despite a plea from senior leaders in the Marine Corps to keep certain frontline units male only. Then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters that, 'We cannot afford to cut ourselves off from half the country's talents and skills.' The policy change meant that women could attend Ranger school, the training ground for the Army Rangers, an elite special operations infantry unit. When Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver became the first women to graduate from the school in 2015, Vanasse taped their photos to her desk and swore she would be next, no matter what it took. She went on to become one of the first women to serve as an Army infantry officer and graduated from Ranger school in 2017. After the Pentagon integrated women into combat jobs, the services developed specific fitness standards for jobs like infantry and armor with equal standards for men and women. Special operations and other highly specialized units require additional qualification courses that are also gender-neutral. To continue past the first day of Ranger school, candidates must pass the Ranger Physical Fitness test, for which there is only one standard. Only the semi-annual fitness tests that service members take, which vary by branch, are scaled for age and gender. Despite that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has continued to insist that the standards were lowered for combat roles. In a podcast interview in November, Hegseth said, 'We've changed the standards in putting [women in combat], which means you've changed the capability of that unit.' (Despite Hegseth's remark, many women worked alongside male infantry units in Iraq and Afghanistan, facing the same dangerous conditions.) In the same interview, Hegseth said that he didn't believe women should serve in combat roles. In March, Hegseth ordered the military services to make the basic fitness standards for all combat jobs gender-neutral. The Army is the first service to comply: Beginning June 1, most combat specialties will require women to meet the male standard for basic physical fitness, something most women serving in active-duty combat roles are already able to do. Vanasse told Noel King on Today, Explained what it was like to attend Ranger School at a time when some men didn't want to see a woman in the ranks. What is Ranger School? I went to Ranger School on January 1, 2017. I woke up at 3 am that day in Fort Benning, Georgia, shaved my head, a quarter-inch all the way around, just like the men. Took my last hot shower, choked down some French toast, and then I drove to Camp Rogers, and I remember being very acutely aware of the pain that the school would inflict, both physically and mentally. I was also very aware that there was kind of half of this population of objective graders that just kind of hated my guts for even showing up. They hated you for showing up because you're a woman? Back in 2016 and 2017, it was so new to have women in Ranger School. I used to think, I don't have to just be good, I have to be lucky. I have to get a grader who is willing to let a woman pass. I had dark times at that school. I tasted real failure. I sat under a poncho in torrential rain and I shivered so hard my whole body cramped. I put on a ruck that weighed 130 pounds and I crawled up a mountain on my hands and knees. I hallucinated a donut shop in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains and I cried one morning when someone told me I had to get out of my sleeping bag. But I think all of those experiences are quintessential Ranger School experiences. They're what everyone goes through there. And I think the point of the school is that failure, that suffering, it's not inherently bad, right? In a way, I like to think Ranger School was the most simplistic form of gender integration that ever could have happened because if I was contributing to the team, there was no individual out there that really had the luxury of disliking or excluding me. When you wanted to give up, what did you tell yourself? What was going through your head? I don't think I ever considered quitting Ranger School. I just knew that it was something that I could get through and had the confidence to continue. I had a thought going in of What could be so bad that would make me quit? and the answer that I found throughout the school was, Nothing. Did you ever feel like they had lowered the standards for you compared to the men who were alongside you? No. Never. I did the same thing that the men did. I did the same Ranger physical fitness test that all the men took. I ran five miles in 40 minutes. I did 49 pushups, 59 situps, six pullups. I rucked 12 miles in three hours with a 45-pound ruck. I climbed the same mountains. I carried the same stuff. I carried the same exact packing list they did, plus 250 tampons for some reason. At no point were the standards lowered for me. Whose idea was it for you to carry 250 tampons? It was not mine! It was a misguided effort to have everyone very prepared for the first women coming through Ranger School. In Ranger School, there's only one standard for the fitness test. Everybody has to meet it, and that allows you to get out of Ranger School and say, 'Look, fellas, I took the same test as the men and I passed.' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is saying that Army combat jobs should only have one standard of fitness for both men and women. And there's part of me that thinks: Doesn't that allow the women who meet the standards to be like, look, We met the same standards as the men. Nothing suspicious here, guys. I think gender-neutral standards for combat arms are very important. It should not be discounted how important physical fitness is for combat arms. I think there's nuance in determining what is a standard that is useful for combat arms, right? But it's an important thing. And there have been gender-neutral standards for combat arms. In things like Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, which is the initial basic training for officers going into the infantry, there are gender-neutral standards that you have to meet: You have to run five miles in 40 minutes, you have to do a 12-mile ruck. All of those standards have remained the same. Pete Hegseth is specifically referring to the Army Combat Physical Fitness test, and to a certain extent I agree, it should be gender-neutral for combat arms. But I think there's nuance in determining what exactly combat arms entails physically. Secretary Hegseth has a lot to say about women, and sometimes he says it directly and sometimes he alludes to it. What he often does is he talks about lethality as something that is critically important for the military. He says the Army in particular needs more of it, but he never really defines what he means by lethality. What is the definition as you understand it? There's a component of lethality that is physical fitness and it should not be discounted. But lethality extends far beyond that, right? It's tactical skills, it's decision-making, it's leadership, it's grit, it's the ability to build trust and instill purpose and a group of people. It's how quick a fire team in my platoon can react to contact. How well my SAW [Squad Automatic Weapon] gunner can shoot, how quickly I can employ and integrate combat assets, how fast I can maneuver a squad. All of those things take physical fitness, but they certainly take more than just physical fitness. There's more to lethality than just how fast you can run and how many pushups you can do. To an average civilian like myself, I hear lethality and I think of the dictionary definition, the ability to kill. Does this definition of lethality involve the ability, physically and emotionally and psychologically, to kill another person? Absolutely. And so when Secretary Hegseth casts doubt on the ability of women to be as lethal as men, do you think there's some stuff baked in there that maybe gets to his idea of what women are willing and able to do? Yes, possibly. I think the [secretary's] message is pretty clear. According to him, the women in combat arms achieved success because the standards were lowered for them. We were never accommodated and the standards were never lowered. What's your response, then, to hearing the Secretary of Defense say women don't belong in combat? It makes me irate, to be honest. Like, it's just a complete discounting of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us. Do you think that if Secretary Hegseth could take a look at what you did in Ranger School, and he could hear from you that there were no second chances, there were no excuses, there was no babying, the men didn't treat you nicer just because you were a woman, do you think he'd change his mind about women serving in combat? I'd like to think he would, but I've met plenty of people whose minds couldn't be changed by reality. I'd love it if he went to Ranger School. He has a lot of opinions about Ranger School for someone who does not have his Ranger tab. What is a Ranger tab, for civilians? A Ranger tab is what you receive upon graduating Ranger School, which means you have passed all three phases and you are now Ranger-qualified in the military. You have that. And the Secretary of Defense doesn't.
News18
16-05-2025
- Politics
- News18
Operation Sindoor Strategic Success, Decisive Indian Victory, Says Modern War Institute's John Spencer
Last Updated: The operation wasn't just tactical success, says Spencer, but also 'a doctrinal execution under live fire' Operation Sindoor met and exceeded its strategic aims—destroying terrorist infrastructure, demonstrating military superiority, restoring deterrence, and unveiling a new national security doctrine—says John W Spencer, a retired United States Army officer, researcher of urban warfare, and author. 'This was not symbolic force. It was decisive power, clearly applied," says Spencer. 'This wasn't just tactical success. It was doctrinal execution under live fire." Spencer serves as the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute. During his military career, he was an infantry platoon leader and company commander, including two combat tours during the Iraq War. In Iraq, Spencer served during the initial invasion in 2003 and later in 2008 during the Iraq War troop surge and the Battle of Sadr City. He was also assigned to Ranger School, Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc. Later, he became a fellow with the chief of staff of the Strategic Studies Group, until he moved to the Modern War Institute (MWI). According to him, the following strategic effects were achieved by India through Operation Sindoor: 1. A New Red Line Was Drawn—and Enforced: Terror attacks from Pakistani soil will now be met with military force. That's not a threat. It's precedent. 2. Military Superiority Demonstrated: India showcased its ability to strike any target in Pakistan at will—terror sites, drone coordination hubs, even airbases. Meanwhile, Pakistan was unable to penetrate a single defended area inside India. That is not parity. That is overwhelming superiority. And that is how real deterrence is established. 3. Restored Deterrence: India retaliated forcefully but stopped short of full war. The controlled escalation sent a clear deterrent signal: India will respond, and it controls the pace. 4. Asserted Strategic Independence: India handled this crisis without seeking international mediation. It enforced doctrine on sovereign terms, using sovereign means. The halt in operations is not the end of Operation Sindoor, says Spencer. According to him, it is a pause. India holds the initiative: if provoked again, it will strike again. 'Operation Sindoor was a modern war—fought under the shadow of nuclear escalation, with global attention, and within a limited objective framework," Spencer says. 'And by every measure that matters, it was a strategic success—and a decisive Indian victory." First Published: May 17, 2025, 00:16 IST
Business Insider
26-04-2025
- General
- Business Insider
1st Lt. Gabrielle White is the first woman to finish the Best Ranger Competition. See what she endured in the grueling 3-day event.
First woman to compete for Best Ranger title In mid-April, US Army 1st Lt. Gabrielle White and her teammate, Capt. Seth Deltenre, competed against more than 50 two-member teams to earn the Best Ranger title. White graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2021. Upon completing Ranger School in April 2022, she earned her Ranger tab, an embroidered patch symbolizing the elite qualification. The 25-year-old infantry officer was assigned to an Army leadership development program at the Maneuver Centre of Excellence, the Army's training hub for ground combat forces, at Fort Benning in Georgia, where the Best Ranger events are held. Arduous competition The Best Ranger Competition was created "not just to see who is the toughest or the most physically fit," but also to "see who is mentally the strongest, the most determined to finish," according to Lt. Gen. David E. Grange Jr., a commanding general of Fort Benning and namesake of the event. For nearly 62 continuous hours, Ranger-qualified soldiers work in teams of two to demonstrate tactical skills, complete difficult obstacle courses, and traverse dozens of miles on both land and water. The competition events mirror real-world Ranger missions, from helocasting and fast-roping to positioning mortars and cutting through steel-reinforced frames. Finished in the top 20 Jeffrey Mellinger, a former sergeant major who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, described the difficulty of the Best Ranger as the Ironman triathlon, the CrossFit Games, and several marathons — stacked back-to-back. "There is not another competition anywhere in the world that comes close to the mental and physical exertion of this competition," he told The New York Times. The Best Ranger Competition is so difficult that only a handful of competitors actually make it to the finish line. White and Deltenre secured a 14th-place finish after 36 other duos were eliminated over the course of the competition. Women Rangers In 2015, the Army allowed women to participate in its 62-day Ranger School course. Nearly two dozen female candidates attempted to complete the course, and in August 2015, then-Capt. Kristen Griest and then-1st Lt. Shaye Haver became the first women to graduate from one of the service's most elite programs. Four months later, the Pentagon opened all military positions to women, including over 200,000 direct combat roles that were previously barred to them. Women make up about 16% of the Army's active-duty troops, according to the Pentagon's 2023 demographics report. As of January 2025, 154 women have graduated from Ranger School. Reassessing military standards White's groundbreaking finish in the Best Ranger Competition comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth orders a broader review of the requirements for combat roles. In late March, Hegseth ordered a 60-day review of the military's physical fitness standards to distinguish combat roles from non-combat and implement higher requirements as needed. "We need to have the same standard, male or female, in our combat roles," Hegseth, a former National Guard infantryman and Fox News host, said in a video posted to X. "Soon, we'll have nothing but the highest and equal standards for men and women in combat." Hegseth had said during a podcast in November that he didn't believe women should be in combat roles at all, arguing that it "hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated." However, ahead of his confirmation hearing, Hegseth appeared to soften his staunch opposition. "If we have the right standard and women meet that standard, roger. Let's go," he said during a December interview on the "Megyn Kelly Show." 'Like every other soldier' The Army is shifting to a new Army Fitness Test with gender-neutral scoring for troops in combat specialties. Military occupations, like special operations and infantry, subject all candidates to higher physical, mental, and psychological standards, regardless of sex or age. To become an Army Ranger specifically, the rigorous entry standards are identical, including the eligibility requirements and physical assessment. Mellinger, who served on an advisory board that oversaw the opening of Ranger School to women, said no standards have been lowered to accommodate the integration. He said White still has to earn her Ranger tab "every day, like every other ranger, like every other soldier." 'A bun on the back of a head' Kris Fuhr, a former Army captain who advocated for integrating women into Ranger School, described White competing for the Best Ranger title as "a three-day public display of what we've been saying for 10 years." "This administration sometimes makes decisions based on misinformation and myths," she told The Times. " Military policy should not be based on either of those." Mellinger, who attended this year's Best Ranger event, said, aside from "a bun on the back of a head," White was indistinguishable from the other male competitors until another spectator pointed her out. "She had the skill and the physical ability to get it done," he said.
New York Times
16-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
In Grueling Ranger Competition, Gender Proves No Obstacle
A female Army Ranger competed for the first time in one of the military's most grueling tests of physical fitness, besting many of her male counterparts and challenging assertions by the U.S. secretary of defense regarding women's abilities to perform at the highest levels. First Lt. Gabrielle White and her teammate, Capt. Seth Deltenre, placed 14th out of 52 teams during the weekend's Best Ranger Competition, a three-day event in Georgia at which some of the Army's most elite soldiers compete in land navigation, marksmanship and an array of physically strenuous tasks. Lieutenant White was the first woman to participate in the four decades that the event has been held. Her team's achievement — she and Captain Deltenre finished among the top competitors after 36 other pairs were eliminated — came less than a decade after women were first granted access to the Army's Ranger School, a rigorous monthslong course with a high rate of failure. Some saw Lieutenant White's performance at the competition as a rejoinder, however unintended, to comments by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth questioning the abilities of women in the military. 'I saw a three-day public display of what we've been saying for 10 years,' said Kris Fuhr, a West Point graduate who was instrumental in integrating women into the Ranger School at Fort Benning in 2015. Mr. Hegseth, a former National Guard infantryman and Fox News host, has spoken critically of the inclusion of women in combat roles. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
