Rangers are NOT leading the way

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.