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First Females Graduate Ranger School
FORT BENNING, GA – Two female soldiers will graduate from
the Army’s grueling Ranger School on Friday, becoming the
first women to ever complete one of the U.S. military’s premier
courses to develop elite fighters and leaders, Army officials
said Monday night.
The women will receive the Ranger Tab alongside 94 male
service members in a ceremony at Fort Benning, Ga., the
home of Ranger School’s headquarters. They overcame
fatigue, hunger and extreme stress to graduate, Army
officials said.
The women have not been identified by the Army, but both
are officers in their 20s and graduates of the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, N.Y., Army officials said. The female
graduates started Ranger School on April 20 alongside 380
men and 17 other female soldiers in the first class to ever
include women. The female soldiers were allowed into Ranger
School as part of the Army’s ongoing assessment of how to
better integrate women.
Some skeptics, especially in the military, have questioned
whether the women were given an easier path to graduation.
But senior Army officials have insisted that is not the case, and
opened Ranger School to media for a few days during each
phase to underscore the point and allow Ranger instructors
and others involved in their evaluation to speak.