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Army Ranger School
of 19 female soldiers passing the initial physical fitness test, as the Pentagon
continues to assess which new combat roles women should have.
The class includes 380 men and 19 women, said Gary Jones, an Army spokesman.
Of those, 78 men (20.5 percent) and three women (15.7 percent) failed the initial
fitness test, he said. Twenty women had qualified to attend by first completing a
17-day preparatory course at Fort Benning, but one of them withdrew.
directive from senior Pentagon officials to research how they can be better
integrated into combat units.
Any woman who graduates from Ranger School this spring will wear the service’s
prestigious Ranger tab on her uniform, but will not be assigned to the Ranger
Regiment, the elite force that carries out special operations and remains closed to
women.
The physical fitness test requires each soldier to complete at least 49 push-ups, 59-
sit-ups, a five-mile run in under 40 minutes and six chin-ups. It’s part of the initial
four-day Ranger Assessment Phase, commonly known as “RAP Week.” The
Ranger School itself spans 62 days and has a graduation rate of about 50 percent.
Over the next several days, it also will include a 12-mile road march while carrying
45 pounds, a land-navigation exercise without the use of GPS, and a water survival
test that includes climbing a 35-foot tower, walking 70 feet across a log and
crawling along a rope before dropping 35 feet into the water.
About 75 percent of students who make it through
RAP week eventually graduate,Ranger School officials say. But it takes months in some cases. Students can fail
individual portions of Ranger School multiple times before either washing out of the
course or moving onto the next section.
The initial phases of Ranger School will continue at Fort Benning. Later parts
include mountain warfare training at Camp Merrill, about 65 miles north of Atlanta in
Dahlonega, Ga., and swamp training around Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
