By Michelle Tan
February 4, 2015
Five female soldiers successfully completed the Ranger Training Assessment Course at Fort Benning, Georgia, moving them one step closer to attending the Army's storied Ranger School this spring.
A total of 58 soldiers — 53 men, five women — completed the two-week course Jan. 30, officials at Fort Benning announced Wednesday.
In all, 122 soldiers started the course, for a completion rate of almost 48 percent.
Among the men, 55 percent of them successfully completed the course (96 started the course; 53 successfully completed it). Among the women, 19 percent were successful (26 started the course; five successfully completed it).
The five women are all officers.
The Army announced in January that it plans to conduct a one-time, integrated assessment at Ranger School in April.
The assessment is part of a wider effort to determine whether and how to open combat arms jobs to women. This assessment will be a first for the two-month Ranger School, which until now has been open only to men.
Women who successfully complete Ranger School will receive a certificate and be awarded the coveted Ranger tab. They will not, however, be assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, which is separate from Ranger School.
To prepare for the assessment in April, the Army is requiring female candidates to attend the two-week Army National Guard Ranger Training and Assessment Course. There will be up to 40 seats for female candidates in each iteration of the course between January and April. The course has historically been a strong indicator of whether a candidate will be successful at Ranger School, officials said. Data has shown that more than half of the soldiers who complete RTAC will successfully complete Ranger School.
Male and female Ranger Training Assessment Course students demonstrate their knowledge of combat water survival techniques Jan. 24 during the Ranger Training Course Assessment at Fort Benning, Georgia.
"This first iteration of an integrated RTAC has provided significant lessons learned as we conduct a deliberate and professional way forward to the integrated assessment in April," said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, in a statement.
The second iteration of RTAC begins Friday at Fort Benning. It's too early to know how many women will participate in that course, said Gary Jones, a spokesman for Fort Benning.
RTAC is two weeks long and consists of two phases, according to information from Fort Benning.
The first phase mirrors the assessment phase at Ranger School and is designed to assess a soldier's physical and mental abilities. During this phase, a student conducts a PT test, a swim test, land navigation, and a 6-mile foot march. The second phase of RTAC, the field training exercise, is designed to assess and train soldiers on troop leading procedures and patrolling, skills that are used extensively during the Ranger School.
On average, about 45 percent of Ranger School students will graduate. As many as 60 percent of all Ranger School failures will occur in the first four days. Many get disqualified during the physical fitness test on the first day. The test gives candidates two minutes to do 49 pushups and two minutes to do 59 situps, and they also must run five miles in 40 minutes and do six chinups.
In fiscal 2014, PT test failures made up the largest number of Ranger School failures.
Of the 26 women who started RTAC in January, 16 completed the training. Five of those 16 successfully met all the course standards and requirements, Jones said.
Of the 26 women who started the course, 19 are officers, six are noncommissioned officers, and one is a specialist, Jones said.
All five of the soldiers who successfully completed the RTAC are officers, he said.
Those five have been invited to attend the Ranger School assessment in April, he said.
"They've qualified themselves to be invited," he said.
The others, if their chains of command allow it, can come back and try RTAC again between now and April, Jones said.
"The April assessment is an assessment of the course itself," he said. "It's an assessment of if we are told to provide gender-integrated training on a long-term basis, is the course set up in the right way to do that? All the assessment is is another data point."
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