Ranger School is open to women, and the Army is looking to hire female captains to serve as observers and advisers.
Female captains assigned for a two-year stint with the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade will not grade students, Army Times reports. Female observers serving during the gender-integrated assessment don’t issue grades, but function as extra support for the male Ranger instructors.
The Army wants four female captains and five sergeants to serve and prefers candidates with war-zone experience. Candidates must have met rigorous physical standards and cannot have a “physically limiting profile.” Applications are due Friday, and once the screening process is completed, successful candidates will report to Fort Benning by Jan. 1 until 2018.
On Sept. 2, the Army opened Ranger School to women two weeks after the graduation of two female candidates from the course, Capt. Kirsten Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, though reports continue to emerge that the school was rigged and politicized. A general reportedly told subordinates that a “woman will graduate Ranger School” before the course even began. One Ranger instructor, under cover of anonymity, told PEOPLE that the process was incredibly politicized and added that instructors felt pressure to comply with a top-down agenda. (RELATED: Sources: Generals Decided Long Before Ranger School That ‘A Woman Will Graduate’)
The U.S. Army didn’t take kindly to the allegations, describing them as “pure fiction.”
“Celebrity gossip may not require fact-checking, fairness or objectivity, but serious journalism does,” Malcolm B. Frost, chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army, said in a statement.
Nevertheless, the number of repeats afforded to female candidates has raised suspicions. And those suspicions refuse to die easily. Rep. Steve Russell, a Ranger graduate, has requested that the Army provide him with detailed documentation on female performance during the course.
An Obama administration official, who is also a West Point graduate, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Russell’s records in response. (RELATED: Obama Official Tries To Intimidate Lawmaker Seeking Female Ranger Records)
The debate surrounding Ranger School will continue, but it seems unlikely at this point that any changes will be rolled back.
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