FORT BENNING, Ga. — The first two women to pass the Army's notoriously difficult Ranger School impressed male classmates left in their dust during road marches and proved their mettle as teammates by helping carry heavy weapons when others were too fatigued to lift another ounce.
First Lt. Shaye Haver of Copperas Cove, Texas, and Capt. Kristen Griest of Orange, Connecticut, pinned on the black-and-gold Ranger tab at a graduation ceremony Friday, along with 94 male soldiers, at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the women Thursday to congratulate them for finishing the nine-week training program.
Their success casts new attention on the obstacles that remain to women who aspire to join all-male combat units, including the 75th Ranger Regiment. Although Haver and Griest are now Ranger-qualified, no women are eligible for the elite regiment, although officials say it is among special operations units likely to eventually be opened to women.
Griest, 26, is a military police officer and has served one tour in Afghanistan. Haver, 25, is a pilot of Apache helicopters. Both are graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Of 19 women who began the Ranger course, Haver and Griest are the only two to finish so far; one is repeating a prior phase of training in hopes of graduating soon.
Rangers call themselves "masters of special light infantry operations" such as seizing key terrain and infiltrating hostile territory by land, sea or air. They are an arm of Army Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command.
The Ranger School, which began during the Korean War as the "Ranger Training Command," fails most who enter. For the period between 2010 and 2014, 58 percent of candidates washed out - most of those within the first four days, a phase that includes tests of physical stamina, a land navigation course, and a 12-mile foot march, according to the Ranger training website.
Ranger history pre-dates to the Revolutionary War and includes prominent roles in the War of 1812 and the Civil War. In the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy, Rangers famously scaled the sheer cliffs of Pointe Du Hoc overlooking Omaha Beach.