Debate can rage around them, but without them
"They could've been celebrities, but they want to be soldiers."
Kris Raymer Fuhr
Class of 1985, U.S. Military Academy
Like so many who have served before them, so many who now serve with them, and so many who will serve after them, the primary realm in which Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver say they belong is the United States Armed Forces, not politics or the public eye.
Make no mistake: The first two women to be awarded the Army's coveted and hard-earned Ranger tab (a third, Maj. Lisa Jaster, was scheduled to receive her Ranger tab Friday) know full well they are historic figures, even if that's not part of a public dialogue in which they care -- at least at this point in their lives and Army careers -- to participate. They are, after all, both graduates of West Point, an institution not known for turning out ignoramuses, but Ivy League-caliber scholars who spend their "spare" time training to be soldiers and leaders as well.
It's not an "Animal House" toga party. Neither, it should go without saying, is Ranger training.
Journalists and news organizations of every kind and from just about everywhere have tried, without much success, to get interviews and exclusives and details; they -- we -- would not be doing our jobs otherwise.
"Magazines, major papers -- you name it," said Fuhr, the West Point alum quoted above, who has become a friend of Haver and Griest. "They politely declined, even when a network news anchor asked them personally, because they wanted to get back to soldiering."
They also know that their most outspoken critics and skeptics, of whom U.S. Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., a 22-year soldier who also earned the Ranger tab, is only the most prominent, are casting their achievement as a political sham and a rigged game. Russell is leading a high-profile quest for documentation that the women were held to strict Ranger standards. Despite categorical and unqualified denials by high-ranking Army officials and Ranger training officers that the course was compromised in any way, the last thing these soldiers need is to get caught up in that circus.
They both are on active duty and have jobs to do. Griest is an MP who will soon return to Fort Benning for the Maneuver Captains Career Course; Haver is an attack helicopter pilot who finished Airborne School here and is preparing for deployment.
Griest and Haver have attended public events (a visit to West Point, an AUSA convention), but have not been the occasion for them. They've declined attention not just on news media, but even on social media.
There are those who will never believe these two Americans should be Rangers, no matter what Russell's probe turns up (or fails to turn up). There can be no credible doubt about their stature as soldiers in the United States Army.
This story was originally published October 17, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Debate can rage around them, but without them."