Blake Hall
PEOPLE magazine, a publication that apparently reports military news alongside red carpet coverage, published an article alleging that the successful graduation of Capt. Kristen Griest and Lt. Shaye Haver from Army Ranger School was rigged by the military. The Army responded with a blistering rebuttal that is sure to sting article author Susan Keating for weeks.
Keating wrote in her article that the Army decided that it must pass female Ranger School students no matter the cost back in January, before women had even enrolled in the program. Anonymous sources allegedly told Keating that the Army ensured that female students would pass the course by holding them to lower standards and allowing women to repeat phases more than men. One source also said that the women were ordered to stay in the course even if they wanted to quit.
All of these allegations were addressed in a scathing statement posted to the U.S. Army Facebook page by Brigadier General Malcolm B. Frost.
“The latest attack on the integrity of the United States Army by PEOPLE magazine’s Susan Keating is more than inaccurate, it is pure fiction,” Frost writes.
She claimed that women were allowed to repeat a Ranger training class until they passed, while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard. That is false. She charged that women regularly practiced on Ranger School’s land navigation course while men saw it for the first time when they went to the school. Again, false. She accused an Army general of calling female candidates together to tell them they could not quit the course. Yet again, false.
There are so many errors and falsehoods that it may be better to cite two snippets that actually had a modicum of truth. Yes, Maj. Gen. Miller did personally observe this Ranger course – as he has every Ranger course since assuming command. That’s his job; but while he may view or even participate in training events, he has never graded or influenced the grade of a Ranger patrol.
Frost explained that Keating had requested interviews with hundreds of officers connected to the Army Ranger School, but never tried to interview the one man who could have answered her questions–Major General A. Scott Miller, the commanding general at Fort Benning. Miller headed the program to admit women into Ranger School, but he also planned how the Army would proceed in the event that no woman passed.
“Celebrity gossip may not require fact-checking, fairness or objectivity, but serious journalism does,” Frost concluded. “On that count Ms. Keating has failed PEOPLE magazine, its readers, and, quite frankly, every man – or woman – who has ever earned the coveted Ranger tab.”
Ouch.