Emelie Vanasse
Appearances
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
in 1952, and it's kind of touted as the premier leadership training and evaluation school for the Army. And women weren't given the chance or the opportunity to attend until 2014. So it took the Army 62 years to realize that women could be leaders, too.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I went to ranger school on the 1st of January, 2017, and I woke up, you know, 3 a.m. that day in Fort Benning, Georgia, shaved my head a quarter inch all the way around, just like the men, took my last hot shower, choked down some French toast, and then I drove to Camp Rogers. And I remember being, like, very acutely aware of the pain that the school would inflict. both physically and mentally.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
But I very much considered it a prerequisite for my job as an infantry officer. I was also very aware that there was kind of half of this population of objective graders that just kind of hated my guts for even showing up.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Back in 2016 and 2017, it was so new to have women in ranger school. I used to think, like, I don't have to just be good. Like, I have to be lucky. I have to get a grader who is willing to let a woman pass. I had dark times at that school. I tasted real failure. I sat under a poncho in torrential rain, and I shivered so hard, my whole body cramped.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I put on a ruck that weighed 130 pounds, and I crawled up a mountain on my hands and knees. I hallucinated a donut shop in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains and I cried one morning when someone told me I had to get out of my sleeping bag. But I think all of those experiences are such like quintessential ranger school experiences. They're what everyone kind of goes through there.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
The point of the school is that failure, that suffering. It's not inherently bad, right? In a way, I like to think like ranger school was the most simplistic form. of gender integration that ever could have happened because if I was contributing to the team, there was no individual out there that really had the luxury of disliking or excluding me.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I think it was just once at ranger school. Yeah. Damn. It was a cold morning and I just really didn't want to get out of my... It had been like 10 minutes of sleep and I was like, no, please, 10 more minutes. But you did it. You just did it. And then you kept going. Well, you just did it.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I don't think I ever really considered quitting at Ranger School. I just knew that it was something that I could get through and had, like, the confidence to continue. I think I had a thought going in of, like, what could be so bad that would make me quit? And, like, the answer that I found throughout the school was nothing.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
No, never. I did the same thing that the men did. I did the same ranger physical fitness test that all the men took. I ran five miles in 40 minutes. I did 49 push-ups, 59 sit-ups, six pull-ups. I rocked 12 miles in three hours with a 45-pound rock. I climbed the same mountains. I carried the same stuff.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I carried the same exact packing list they did plus 250 tampons for some reason at no point were the standards lowered for me.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
It wasn't yours. It was not mine, yeah. A misguided effort to have everyone very prepared for the first women coming through ranger school.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
No, not at all. It's six pull-ups or you don't get to do ranger school. You get dropped on the first day. So everybody does six pull-ups.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I think gender neutral standards for combat arms is very important. Like, it should not be discounted how important physical fitness is for combat arms. I think there's nuance in determining, like, what is a standard that is useful for combat arms, right? Um... But I think it's an important thing.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
And there have honestly been gender neutral standards for combat arms in things like infantry basic officer leadership course, which is kind of the initial kind of basic training for officers going into the infantry. There are gender neutral standards that you have to meet. You have to run five miles in 40 minutes. You have to do a 12 mile rock. Like all of those standards have remained the same.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Pete Hegseth is specifically referring to the Army Combat Physical Fitness Test. And to a certain extent, I agree, it should be gender neutral for combat arms. But I think there's nuance in determining what exactly does combat arms entail physically.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
There's a component of lethality that is physical fitness, and it should not be discounted. But lethality extends far beyond that, right? It's tactical skills. It's decision-making. It's leadership. It's grit. It's the ability to build trust and instill purpose in a group of people. It's how quick a fire team in my platoon can react to contact.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
how well my saw gunner can shoot, how quickly I can employ and integrate combat assets, how fast I can maneuver a squad. All of those things take physical fitness, but they certainly take more than just physical fitness. So I think there's more to lethality than just how fast you can run and how many pushups you can do.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I think the SecDef's message is pretty clear. According to him, the women in combat arms achieved success because the standards were lowered for them. We were never accommodated and the standards were never lowered.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I mean, it makes me irate, to be honest. Like it's just a complete discountment of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us. There's this Rupi Kaur poem that I love and that like gives me solace and strength in these moments where it just feels like I'm having the same conversation on a repeat these days.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
And it goes like, I stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me thinking, what can I do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see further? It's exhausting to have this conversation again, but at least I get to relive the accomplishments of some incredible women that have added so much to that mountain.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
I'd like to think he would, but I've met plenty of people whose mind couldn't be changed by reality. I'd love if he went to ranger school. He has a lot of opinions about ranger school for someone who's never been. He may have gone and failed, I'm actually not quite sure, but he does not have his ranger tab.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
A ranger tab is what you receive upon graduating ranger school, which means you have passed all three phases and you are now ranger qualified in the military.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
This means that as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before. They'll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars, and lead infantry soldiers into combat.
Today, Explained
Should women be in combat?
Ranger School is kind of a crucible event for the Army. It's a three-phase school in which individuals are deprived of food and sleep and warmth and kind of basic human comforts and forced to make decisions and lead in complex situations. And then they're evaluated on those leadership decisions. So Ranger School was founded today.