Two Female Soldiers Graduate From U.S. Army Ranger School

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Two women who endured weeks of grueling physical training to pass the U.S. Army's Ranger School will graduate Friday, capping their history-making week.

First Lt. Shaye Haver of Copperas Cove, Texas, and Capt. Kristen Griest of Orange, Connecticut, will graduate from the Army's elite Ranger School along with 94 male soldiers at Fort Benning, Georgia.

They finished the nine-week training program on Monday.

Haver and Griest were part of a test program to see how women perform under the intense physical and mental course.

"I do hope that with our performance in Ranger School we've been able to inform that decision as to what they can expect from women in the military, that we can handle things physically and mentally on the same level as men," Griest said Thursday.

For now, Griest and Haver will not be allowed to join a Ranger regiment, but Pentagon officials said that could soon change.

"The department's policy is that all ground combat positions will be open to women unless rigorous analysis of factual data shows that the positions must remain closed," Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said.

Haver and Griest had words of advice for other women looking to advance in the military.

"To the other females who plan on coming I hope that they come with a strong mind," Haver said. "That's what it takes to get through here."

Griest said she hopes her success shows that women "can deal with the same stresses and training that men can.''

Carter said Thursday he will decide by December whether to accept any recommended exceptions to an order, signed by one of his predecessors, Leon Panetta, nearly three years ago that said all positions must be open to qualified women unless service leaders can justify keeping any closed. Any recommended exceptions are due to Carter in October.

Griest, 26, is a military police officer and has served one tour in Afghanistan. Haver, 25, is a pilot of Apache helicopters. Both are graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Of 19 women who began the Ranger course, Haver and Griest are the only two to finish so far; one is repeating a prior phase of training in hopes of graduating soon.

The next class begins in November and it, too, will have female Ranger candidates.

Rangers call themselves "masters of special light infantry operations'' such as seizing key terrain and infiltrating hostile territory by land, sea or air. They are an arm of Army Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command.

The Ranger School, which began during the Korean War as the "Ranger Training Command,'' fails most who enter. For the period between 2010 and 2014, 58 percent of candidates washed out - most of those within the first four days, a phase that includes tests of physical stamina, a land navigation course, and a 12-mile foot march, according to the Ranger training website.

Ranger history pre-dates to the Revolutionary War and includes prominent roles in the War of 1812 and the Civil War. In the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy, Rangers famously scaled the sheer cliffs of Pointe Du Hoc overlooking Omaha Beach.

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