Much is being made of the two women who will graduate Ranger School this week.  One show boater and spot lighter who will be present for the graduation is President Obama himself, never one to let a good PR event go to waste no doubt.  Worse, he will certainly insist on giving a groan worthy speech at graduation equality or whatever.  As for Ranger School’s first two women graduates, they deserve a lot of credit for their accomplishment.  Lots of veterans on social media are bitching and moaning but the reality is that we have yet to see any evidence that standards were lowered in order to accommodate the female Ranger students.  Perhaps the male Ranger School graduates a little threatened, feeling that their tab is somehow less precious now that women have passed the course as well.

While I would be disgusted if standards were ever lowered for political purposes, I’m equally disgusted by many of the comments I see about the women who have attempted Ranger school.  Many veterans and active duty soldiers demean these women in the most shallow and superficial ways.  Personally, I see no reason to assume that these women have any different motivations for going to Ranger School than I did.  They want to be the best, so they know what school they have to go to in order to attain that goal.

I’ve been very adamant about not having female soldiers serve in the Infantry and in Special Operations.  I have my reasons for feeling this way and it isn’t simply because I don’t think women are physically capable.  It has more to do with the damage done to morale when men and women are thrown together on a combat deployment and the immaturity which ensues.  But we’re not talking about combat positions, we’re talking about Ranger School.  It is a school open to the rank and file of the U.S. Army, and even some Marines, Air Force personnel, and SEALs attend the course.

Some media outlets, like NBC news however, are unable to even accept the breakthrough that these two female Ranger students have made.  No, they’re not content, far from it.  So they go way out of their way to point out that although they graduated Ranger School that the 75th Ranger Regiment is still closed off to them.  This is modern American culture.  We are always racist, we are always sexist, we’re all horrible all of the time.  Wah.  For the foreseeable future, the Ranger Regiment will not be accepting women into the ranks.  That’s another discussion for another time.

For now, these two women deserve a handshake and a cold one.  Maybe we can stow away our hurt feelings for some other time.