Uphold the standards.
Nearly three months after Army Secretary John McHugh approved the first integrated Ranger training for women and men at Fort Benning, 20 women are expected to tackle the grueling, nine-week course starting Monday at Fort Benning.
The women successfully completed a two-week Ranger Assessment Training Course to qualify for Ranger School. They join a class of about 400 soldiers trying to earn the coveted Ranger tab with the toughest training in the Army.
As the first phase of training gets underway at Camp Rogers and Camp Darby, instructors at the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade said that, based on history, nearly half of the graduates will repeat portions or get recycled through the course, and that less than half will graduate.
Retired Col. Ralph Puckett, an inaugural inductee of the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame and decorated veteran of the Korean War and Vietnam War, supports the integrated training as long as standards aren’t slackened. “I have thought for years that it’s OK with me, if they maintain the standards,” he said.
Former Ranger instructors said male and female soldiers will be physically and mentally tested in the beginning of the first week called Ranger Assessment Phase or “RAP week,” in which 60 percent of soldiers fail in the first four days. The physical assessment standards include 49 pushups, 59 situps, a five-mile run in 40 minutes or less and six chinups.
Retired 1st Sgt. David Lockett of Columbus recalled his first day at Ranger School in 1958. “The first thing they asked me was could I run five miles,” he said. “I said, ‘Yessir, if somebody is after me, I could.’ But laying all jokes aside, they were not kidding me.”