Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 41

WOMEN IN COMBAT

(US Air Force photo by Patrick Albright)

1st. Lt. Alessandra Kirby, Utah National Guard, negotiates the Darby Obstacle Course at Fort Benning, Ga., during the Ranger assessment
conducted 15 November 2012. Those selected will be among a handful of women going to the grueling Army Ranger school as part of
the U.S. military’s first steps toward allowing women to move into the elite combat unit.

Women in Combat

The Question of Standards
Jude Eden

A

re women in the military discouraged from
training to meet the men’s standards? Is
this why all women have washed out of the
Marine Corps’ Officer Infantry Course? That is one
of the charges female Marine 1st Lt. Sage Santangello
makes in a March 2014 article for the Washington
Post. One of the 29 women, as of this writing, who
have failed the course, Santangello says,
I believe that I could pass, and that other
women could pass, if the standards for men
MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2015

and women were equal from the beginning
of their time with the Marines, if endurance
and strength training started earlier than the
current practice for people interested in going
int