I was going to go on an epic rant but I found someone who said it and sourced it better than I did, so here it is.  First hearing about this a few weeks ago, I held off commenting until we had confirmation.  Yesterday, it hit the press.  Maybe when I regain my composure I will take a shot at it myself.  It sounds like many, if not most, former Rangers are okay with this if the high standards are maintained at the school house.  I don’t have that much confidence in the Army.  No one will resign in protest but will rather bow down to political pressure to have a certain quota of female Ranger School graduates. -Jack Murphy (Ranger School Class 04-04)

It was clear that nobody’s opinion was being solicited. The message came from the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the order seems to have come from echelons above him: Ranger School will admit women within a few months. And the women willpass, whatever it takes.

Female officers have complained that the lack of the school credential disadvantages them for promotions and commands, and in an election year their complaints have found champions among the political appointees in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In a Department whose highest priority is the Secretary’s million-dollar Gulfstream commute, and that has lost interest in two ongoing wars and a dozen other flashpoints where soldiers risk their lives daily, a stroke of a pen can upend a 60-year-old course that embodies a tradition with roots in the 18th Century.

And it just did.