Ranger Up: Some Thoughts

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Have you heard the news? Two women graduated from Ranger school today! Isn't it [insert opinion: great/awful/inspiring/ludicrous/the beginning of a brave new world/the end of the world]!?

I've been keeping up with this news and the progress of these women (along with many other men and women in uniform) long before the interwebs started exploding this past week. And while I was hesitant to add my small little voice to all that loud clashing out there [where it seems everyone's talking and no one's listening], my husband reminded me that some people will still want to ask our opinion on the matter. And they have.

So--since the questions have started rolling in, and since this history-in-the-making hits especially close to home for me and many of my peers--air my thoughts I will. 

First of all, to the two women and the 94 men who graduated today, I offer my sincerest congratulations and best wishes for a boatload of good food and uninterrupted rest--and (though maybe not so realistic for this class) I wish you some shelter from the media storm that threatens to swallow you as you emerge battered and weary from, presumably, some of the hardest months of your lives.

Second, I'd like to say how impressed I am by every single one of these graduates' accomplishments. As a woman--specifically one sharing the same Alma Mater and path of service as these women who earned a Ranger tab today--I know that even at my best and most fit, I could never do what they did. Emotionally or physically. Nor would I ever wish to. I grew up on my Ranger-dad's knee listening to his stories of bone-deep exhaustion and shrinking stomachs; falling asleep while walking, hallucinations of trees soliciting themselves as vending machines stocked with goodies, and the phantom smell of popcorn filling the air, taunting him through patrols. I've relinquished creature comforts far too often in my short military career, so to the Ranger tab requirements, I say no thank you. And I also know many, many men sharing our background who have zero qualms about admitting the same. Some men and women are cut out for this kind of stretch-yourself-beyond-the-max deal. Other men and women gladly concur that their strengths lie elsewhere.

Which begs the real question: since when does a difference in gender define our competence and our worth? 

[Don't answer that quite yet--our culture is still coming up to speed on said question and clearly hitting some oversized speed bumps].

Personally, I don't believe that women must do everything that men do, any more than I believe men must do everything women do. I respect and appreciate our physiological differences, especially for the fact that--when used to their best potential--these differences compliment each other in the most essential and beautiful ways. Not only are we men and women equally necessary, we are equally worthwhile.

I think that's the central issue here. I think that's what the issue always has been. For centuries our culture has defined worth in the wrong way, creating gender and race discrepancies, glass ceilings and discriminations that carelessly push aside the truth and cloud the reality of individual worth with smoke screens galore. 

So, while I am infinitely proud of what these women have accomplished, while I am blown away by this great something that has never before been done [namely because it has never before been allowed], it makes me take pause and reflect with a bit of sadness on the things the world tells women they must do in order to prove themselves worthy. 

We are already worthy. Men. Women. Humans. Our mere existence defines our worth. 

And I don't think things will really change until we recognize that our innate human dignity and worth doesn't depend on what we do or don't do, what we can or can't be. Our human worth springs from the simple and indisputable fact that we are. 

I wish that's what the world could take from this. Sadly, with the chauvinists trolling the internet, bending over backwards to find ways discredit these women, and with militant feminist bra-burners declaring, "Women are Winning, death to the Men," it's clear that all the contests and contesting will only result in a greater divide. Oy, does this frustrate me. We need each other to make this world spin in the right direction. We need to acknowledge that we are all worthy, regardless of Ranger tabs or our position on the corporate ladder or our net worth or our nationality or race or gender. And while we've always chased after the opposite, it remains that our world cannot seem to thrive when defining global progress in the scope of a man's world or a woman's world. We need to answer the need for a people's world, one where we understand our responsibility as unique individuals, each capable of contributing our own specific strengths and gifts, each acknowledging the need for others with different talents and strengths to fill the gap when and where the rest of us can't. We have all been created in order to give something, and it's not up to anyone else to define what we can or can't offer based on arbitrary categorization--gender or otherwise. 

That, I think, is what has highlighted some of my own unexpected emotions this past week as the media storm has kicked off. 

To come face to face with the division of utter jubilation contrasted with seething disgust is...unsettling. These are things that--as a woman--I didn't have to consider when I trotted off to my Alma Mater twelve years ago, despite the fact that a mere twenty-five years before, the very first women were stepping foot into those same halls. Though I can say that the culture I experienced was certainly still tipped against women in some ways, I never went through a day at West Point fearing the hatred and intimidation that the first few classes of women did. I didn't have to think about whether my decision to go to West Point was making a statement or proving a point or making waves. I simply admired my father's service, and the mission of the school resonated with something deep inside me; I felt like I was supposed to go, and so I went.  I personally was supported by just as many men as I was women. I never thought much of the first class of women, the ones who had it so tough so that I could walk the halls freely with a mere fraction, a slight undertone, of the opposition they faced. Indeed, this ease with which I went through a previously all-male institution has never really struck me until these past few weeks. As I've watched the details and reality of this historic event-in-the-making unfold, as I've witnessed the intensity of all the reactions, both in favor of and against two women who did in fact make a statement, it's been truly powerful in ways I didn't expect. 

Do I think what these women accomplished over the past few months and got rewarded for today is incredulously amazing? Absolutely. One hundred percent.

Do I think this is the single token of respect and self-worth for which women of our generation and past generations have been yearning? Not on the whole. That, I suspect, will still be years in the making. On the up side, many colleagues in my unit and many peers in my generation demonstrate cotinually that they don't dole out respect based on the stereotype, but the individual. Like I said, though, as our overarching culture stands currently, it seems that defining the differences takes precedence over the desire to highlight the sum of our strengths. Rangers included.

That's the place where my mixed feelings continue to wallow.

On a slightly different note, I'd like to talk about the "new Army" for a moment, since many without military experience have asked me about the concept of women in combat, which some consider directly tied to the idea of women as Rangers. Officially allowing women near the front lines may have been a valid concern in past generations, but these days when it comes to jobs in the military, things aren't so cut and dry as they were once upon a time. In the conflicts of the last 15 years, the so-called "front lines" have been blurred beyond recognition. One could be a transporter, a military intelligence officer, a communications officer, a medical officer--male or female--and every day drive past the same IED hot spot as a male infantry officer. How many soldiers can avoid a fearsome fate and for how long is sometimes simply the luck of the draw. In our modern military, combat or "male-coded" positions versus non-coded positions are starting to mean much less when it comes to who is "safe" from the fight. For all intents and purposes, misleading "non-combat" titles aside, women have been in combat--in the very thick of it--for over ten years now. Experience in these conflicts has taught my generation that the fight is everywhere all at once--and male or female, force sustainer or combat arms soldier, the front lines might be under our feet in the blink of an eye. We all must be prepared to respond as such, and thousands of women as well as men already have. 

Of course, I'm not naive enough to claim that certain jobs and positions and vocations in life shouldn't have prerequisites or require specific skill sets. And when it comes to the military, those requirements are often physical in nature and some skill sets require an exceptional amount of what the Army likes to call mental toughness--not least of all, positions requiring a Ranger tab. 

Physiological differences in the sexes will obviously play in to some of these requirements. On average, men are stronger and larger than women. On average, men are faster. But generalizations don't necessarily define what is better or worse, and the elite of the fighting force don't usually dip their hand into the same dish as the 'on average.' There are 70-year-olds out there who can run faster and farther than I ever could. I can say in the same breath that thanks to my gymnastics background, I know many male colleagues who will never be able to do as many sit-ups as me on a physical fitness test--even though the sit-up standards are exactly the same for men and women, and even though my abs have been fully separated three times by the children I have birthed. So what does that prove? 

Reiterating my earlier thoughts, I think it proves that the focus is in entirely the wrong place. It proves that while we can generalize, we're hurting ourselves by using blind (dis)qualifiers like gender or size or even age to define which elite individuals in their fields will be able to meet or exceed certain standards.

My husband and I have discussed this often in our time as a dual-military couple, and early on he offered a perspective that I tend to agree with: Every Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) should have its own prerequisites, and each job opening should by filled by an individual who meets those standards. Some positions already have certain physical or intellectual prerequisites, like mail clerks who must be able to lift 70 pounds or translators who must score high enough on a specialized language test. Some initial entry tests identify a few general areas of strengths, but constraints still exist, and by and large, prerequisites aren't the norm for many positions within a unit. So I would support the fact that letting go of the arbitrary constraints and focusing on more specific standards for all positions could identify which individuals are best suited to serve in which positions--regardless of gender--in order to have the best, most effective fighting force possible.

Again, I don't think we as a society are ready to accept that gender strengths and weaknesses will always overlap, or that our worth is indisputably universal. I hope, of course, that one day we'll be able to see past the labels to recognize our inherent worth. I hope one day we can all just get along. I hope, somewhat optimistically, that the world my kids take on will be one where they are willing to embrace challenges and hone their strengths, but also one where they don't feel the need to prove themselves worthy in ways they already are.

In the mean time, to the graduates who have stretched themselves to the very limits of their beings...and then willed themselves to stretch even further...hats off. I am insanely impressed and proud of you all. May you find yourselves surrounded by continual support, may you revel in the worth of who you were before and who you are after this huge accomplishment, and may that steak dinner and warm bed be everything you hallucinated about through Mountain Phase and more.