Hey don’t leave us in suspense. Tell us all your menstrual cup war stories.
White skin used to required too.
The conclusion you reach is that the Army should not water down it’s Commando training school just so particular people who do not meet the standards can pass. Don’t have the athleticism because of your age, gender, race, previous injuries, or lack of training? Too bad, you fail. You aren’t cut out to be a Commando.
And instead if anything needs fixing, it’s the reliance on needing to be trained to fight behind enemy lines in order to be promoted in the Army equivalent of HR.
Ranger school is not commando training school. It is a leadership school. Rangers usually end up getting a ranger tab but it is not a prerequisite for becoming a ranger.
Sure, leadership in a military environment requires a significant amount of physical ability but its not commando school.
AFAICT ranger tabs are one of the primary ways that inexperienced infantry officers can gain the credibility to lead combat missions. It is particularly important for people who more senior officers might be reluctant to put in charge of a unit. Like if you don’t have testicles.
We work on a volunteer army and the only thing we want standard in all recruits is a desire and willingness to serve. We don’t need them to all have the same prior life experience, we try to burn that shit out of them during basic training and turn them into standardized cogs in all the ways that matter. Now having different perspectives on life can give you some advantages around the margins but it is only marginal.
As I have explained repeatedly in this thread (and I don’t know ho0w many times I have to do it before people understand), the ranger tab is not a special forces insignia or anything like that. Ranger school is a leadership school not a special forces school. There is a large physical element to a leadership school in the military because fighting and killing is a pretty physical activity but the purpose of ranger school isn’t to figure out who the super soldier ninjas are.
Once again RANGER SCHOOL IS NOT SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING.
I was curious about this statement, so I asked an actual Army officer who I trust, quoting his reply:
**"Generally speaking, yes. All officers and NCOs are expected to be Ranger qualified (school) before being assigned to the 75th (unit). Rarely a low density MOS guy (S6, chemical dude) MIGHT get orders but it is understood and accepted he is going to school REAL soon.
Junior enlisted are able to get “ranger contracts” for their first term where they are guaranteed Airborne school and assignment to 75th after graduating basic. Their life sucks. They are less than slaves at the mercy of the most sadistic Soldiers ever, E4s and new E5s with Ranger Tabs supervising non tabbed guys."**
So it seems like Officers and NCO do in fact have to go through Ranger school in order to be assigned to the Ranger Regiment, but junior enlisted not so much.
Doubtful, but the people they target for recruiting might…
So the 75th, which is basically a unit of 3rd string airborne commandos (second string is Green Beret, first string Delta Force/SEALs), uses Ranger school as a metric for qualification. This has been what I have been saying the whole time. Remember the scenes in Band of Brothers, where they get inserted by parachute the night of the invasion? Those guys. And yes, for a mission like that, the individual soldiers must carry enough ammo, water, body armor, rations, explosives, and everything else until the next time they are resupplied. Historically, there were incidents when the unit was cut off (happened during the Battle of the Bulge, happened during Vietnam, happened for a few hours during Black Hawk Down) and was down to whatever ammo and supplies they had carried in.
This is basically a mission where nearly all girls, anyone over 35, anyone who is not born with the right genes for athleticism, anyone not able to tolerate sleep deprivation, anyone without incredible mental resilience, and so on need not apply.
No worries. Only morons would want to be part of a unit like that, anyway. I personally think anyone who joins the Army in combat arms who doesn’t go for Armor is an idiot. Would you rather trudge on foot or have ~40 tons of hyper-advanced depleted uranium and ceramic armor around you, driven by a 1500 horsepower engine, and packing an enormous gun?
Per an Armor officer I knew : RPG hits to the outside just leave a black smear. Bullets do nothing. One time, the other tank in his element ran over a 2000 lb buried IED. The blast knocked the loader out of his hatch and took the driver’s foot off (the Abrams doesn’t have very good armor on the underside)…but no one was killed. Oh yeah, the Abrams has thermals sights that make human beings in view glow, so it’s really easy to see people sneaking up. And aim compensation, so hitting another tank at a distance is pretty easy to do…
No, women should not be given special treatment just because of their gender, that would be condescending to them, and it would undermine the meritocratic way of life we have in America.
Assuming that a woman should be held to lower standards than men is really the epitome of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Special, extra training that men weren’t allowed to have? Why are they assuming that women need that extra help?
Now, it’s important for women to be represented, of course, and the Rangers should seek out qualified women to train and hire, but not with rigid quotas.
Since Left Hand of Dorkness decided to run away from the obvious next question: how does that “might” square up with the fact that ISIS is at war with armies full of Muslims?
Not sure what that is expected to prove. Especially with lines like “For some duty positions, you will not serve in the Regiment until you successfully complete Ranger School” and “The 75th Ranger Regiment does require that its leaders attend the U.S. Army Ranger School”
Which explicitly contradicts your statement of “Rangers usually end up getting a ranger tab but it is not a prerequisite for becoming a ranger” since apparently, even according to the FAQ you linked, it IS a prerequisite for becoming a leader in the Regiment.
And unless you have something better than a FAQ on the goarmy.com page, I’ll take the word of a US Army Colonel over you.
A few tidbits from that page :
Upon successful completion of one of our Ranger Assessment & Selection Programs (RASP), we will send you to the appropriate schools in order to serve in the Ranger Regiment. For some duty positions,** you will not serve in the Regiment until you successfully complete Ranger School**. ** If you are unable to complete the course, you may be dropped from the Regiment** and sent to serve at the needs of the Army.
A Physical Training score of 240 or above (80% on each event)
Keep in mind, a man who can reach a 240 is in absolute terms much stronger than a woman who can reach a 240. He’s bigger and the actual thresholds are higher. It’s about 100 pushups in 2 minutes among other things - you need to be pretty jacked to achieve that. And lean as well, since you also need to complete the 2 mile run in 12:30 or so.
So yes, my previous statements are definitely the case.
From your link:
Doesn’t look like you go too far without your Ranger tab.
The SEALS aren’t part of the Army. They’re the Navy’s equivalent to Army’s SF Groups (the Green Berets.) Delta Force is a detachment from 1SFG, and is a specialized operations unit of the same. The Rangers aren’t “third-string commandos” by any lights. Most SF operators are also Rangers, and they certainly go through training that is more intense than Ranger School, but the Rangers aren’t a second string SF operation: they fulfill operations requiring company or larger sized units, instead of the fire-team to platoon sized operations SF Group handles.
The smart guys who enlist as 19K thinking the way you describe are the ones that are the most fun to watch getting sent out on long patrols with a ruck and an M-4 just like the infantry.
I was clarifying and highlighting. I think your statement is generally true.
Having ranger tab is not a prerequisite for becoming a ranger. That was the comment you were responding to and I thought you were agreeing with me. Maybe not.
Sure but its not a requirement for becoming an army ranger.
Most folks with ranger tabs aren’t in ranger battalion. There are maybe 2000 Army Rangers there are probably at least as many ranger school grads who aren’t in the Army rangers.
I’ll take the published comments of the US army over your recollection of a conversation you had with a colonel.
I still haven’t identified what it is that we are disagreeing on.
Ranger school is still not commando school, it is a leadership school. How important is physical strength as a leadership quality? I suspect most of the candidates at ranger school have no interest in becoming an Army Ranger.
I am 50 years old and about 20 pounds overweight and I can do 50 pushups in 1 minute. I suspect I could do 100 in 2 minutes with a few months of training. honest to God, I suspect most physically fit 20 year olds could meet the bare physical requirements. Its the other stuff that really kills you.
Still not prerequisite. Ranger school is still not commando school. We are not endangering lives or the mission by letting women get ranger tabs. It is not clear that physical strength is nearly as important as physical endurance. Being able to think clearly after 2 nights without sleep seems to be a much more important leadership ability that bench pressing a thousand pounds.
It looks like it is actually a prerequisite in a number of instances. Your linked FAQ says “it is not a pre-requisite to join the Ranger Regiment in all instances.” which strongly implies it often is.
I’m not sure this is true. In some circumstances, leadership has zero to do with physical skills at all. But in a circumstance where you’re leading a group who is focused on physical skills, then being exceptional yourself in those same physical skills helps with the leadership angle as well.
That’s why superstar athletes assume leadership roles on their teams. That doesn’t mean there aren’t coaches who had negligible athletic talents. But being talented is certainly a big part of it too.