Students at Ranger School attend the Mountain Phase course based at Camp Frank D. Merrill in northern Georgia. Those who completed it must next pass the Florida Phase, operating in swamps. (Video courtesy the U.S. Army) 
 
 Only the swamps of Florida stand between two female soldiers becoming the first women to ever graduate from the Army’s famously difficult Ranger School. 
 
 The women have completed the school’s Mountain Phase, and will move on to the third and final phase of training, Army officials said Friday. It begins Sunday when they and 125 men who also completed the Mountain Phase parachute into the Florida Panhandle and start training at Eglin Air Force Base’s Camp James E. Rudder. 
 
 A third woman who advanced to the Mountain Phase was “recycled” along with 60 men. That means they did not advance, but will be allowed to try the course again and can still graduate later. All three women began the Mountain Phase on July 11 alongside 156 male students who also were attempting it for the first time, and 42 men who already were training in the mountains, but failed to pass there the first time. The phase includes 20 days of climbing, hiking, rappelling and patrolling in the mountains of the Chattahoochee National Forest, mostly with minimal sleep and little food. 
 
 [Earlier coverage: Ranger School’s assessment of women has moved to the mountains, but scrutiny remains] 
 
 “The Ranger students, both male and female, are two-thirds of the way done with Ranger School,” Col. David Fivecoat, the commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade, said of the those who passed. “I was very impressed with the students’ toughness at leading platoon-size patrols in the North Georgia Mountains during this extremely hot summer. The coastal swamps of Florida will continue to test the students — only the best will be successful and earn the Ranger Tab.” 
 
 The women are attending for the first time as part of an ongoing assessment by the military about how it should better integrate women into combat roles in the military. It follows a 2013 decision by Pentagon leaders to open all jobs in the military to women by 2016. The services were required to conduct research first, and are permitted to request an exception to the new policy in coming months for any jobs they want to keep closed, provided they can show evidence that it wouldn’t work. 
 
 
 
 A female Ranger student works her way down a rappel tower during the Ranger Course at Camp Frank D. Merrill in northern Georgia on July 12, 2015. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Brooks/ U.S. Army) 
 
 The odds of a woman completing Ranger School are now relatively high. In fiscal 2014, the average class in the Florida Phase had 190 students, with 4 percent dropped from Ranger School, 19 percent recycled to take it again and 77 passing, Fivecoat said. The average Mountain Phase course had 219 students, with 6 percent dropped, 24 percent recycled to try and 70 percent moved on to the Florida phase. 
 
 The earlier portions of Ranger School have historically been the biggest obstacles. The average class at the beginning included 369 students. Nearly half — 44 percent — failed to make through the initial four-day Ranger Assessment Phase. 
 
 Nineteen women started Ranger School on April 20. Any of the remaining three who graduate will be allowed to wear the Army’s Ranger Tab, a prestigious decoration that greatly helps career advancement, if they graduate. They will not, however, be allowed to join the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, which performs Special Operations missions. Many male soldiers, ranging from pilots to artillerymen, also earn the tab and serve in roles outside the Rangers. 
 
 [At Army Ranger School, admiration — and frustration — in assessment of women] 
 
 The Florida Phase is 17 days long, and focuses on extended platoon operations in the steamy coastal swamps near Valparaiso, Fla. It includes two airborne jumps from aircraft, four days of waterborne operations, a 10-day field training exercise with students leading patrols and two administrative days in which students are counseled on their performance. 
 
 Training at Camp Rudder takes place in several locations, and includes instruction on stream-crossing and small-boat operations. At least 22 students have died during Ranger training there, though none since an “invisible safety net” was put in place after four students died of hypothermia while maneuvering through chest-deep water in February 1995. 
 
 
 
 Camp James E. Rudder is on the Florida Panhandle, and includes numerous swamps. (Landsat via Google Earth) 
 
 The course now includes field ambulances that are posted minutes away, evacuation helicopters and numerous rescue boats that are kept on standby, according to an information paper published by the Army. Before students enter water, divers also check on conditions, and “an elaborate system to monitor weather and water conditions and depths exists at every step in the exercise,” it said. 
 
 Maj. Gen. A. Scott Miller, the commanding general of the Maneuver Center for Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., said in a statement released Friday that he observed the students during the Mountain Phase as they were close to completing an exhausting 10-day field training exercise. 
 
 Day Nine of it “develops all of the qualities we are looking for in our future Rangers: grit, refusal to quit, tactical competence, and perhaps most importantly, teamwork while under extreme individual conditions,” Miller’s statement said. “It is impressive to observe the students’ problem solving in this environment, and equally impressive to watch our Ranger Instructors coach, teach and mentor in an absolutely professional manner.” ||||| Two Army soldiers are still in the running to become the first women ever to earn a Ranger tab. 
 
 On Friday, the Army announced that these women, along with 125 men, successfully passed the second phase of Ranger school – the mountain phase – in the north Georgia mountains. 
 
 Coming into the mountain phase, three of the 19 women who originally began Ranger School back in April were still at Ranger School. One of these women and 60 men will now be offered the opportunity to recycle, or repeat, the mountain phase of the training. 
 
 For the rest of the students, their next stop, starting Sunday, will be Camp Rudder at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where they will begin jungle training, the final step in their efforts to earn a Ranger tab. 
 
 The soldiers are part of a pilot program this year to allow women to participate in Ranger School. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno has said that he expects the pilot program to be extended for at least a couple more rounds of Ranger School. The move is another step toward erasing historic discrepancies within the military that have contributed to a perception that women were second-class soldiers, advocates of the change say. If they pass, the women would not serve as Rangers, but would instead earn the tab, which could offer them additional credibility with fellow soldiers. 
 
 All of these students have demonstrated “grit, refusal to quit, tactical competence, and perhaps most importantly, teamwork while under extreme individual conditions,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commander of the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga. 
 
 The Ranger students, including the three women – all West Point graduates – began the mountain phase of their training near Dahlonega, Ga., on July 11. 
 
 The swamp training, as with all phases of Ranger School, is intense. In February 1995, four soldiers died during swamp training, due to “severely lowered body temperatures” after conducting military exercises, including building rope bridges, in chest-deep water for an extended period of time. Four others, suffering from hypothermia, were sent to the hospital. Though this is unlikely to be a problem in the summer, the swamp phase will test the Ranger students in a number of ways. ​ 
 
 It will include 17 days of “extended platoon level operations” in the “costal swamp environment” near Valparaiso, Fla. During this time, there will be two jumps for those soldiers who are airborne-qualified. The training also will feature four days of “waterborne operations,” including small boat movements and stream crossings, as well as 10 days of field training with student-led patrols. All of this training is meant to simulate warfighting in the jungle. 
 
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 At this point, the students are two-thirds of the way done with Ranger School, notes Col. David Fivecoat, commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning. 
 
 “I was very impressed with the students’ toughness at leading platoon-sized patrols in the North Georgia Mountains during this extremely hot summer,” he said in a statement issued by the Ranger School. “The coastal swamps of Florida will continue to test the students,” he added. “Only the best will be successful and earn the Ranger Tab.”
– Two women tomorrow will begin a grueling 17-day stretch in the swamps of Florida, and if they make it out OK, they'll become the first females to earn an Army Ranger title. The pair have advanced to the final stage of the Ranger school, having gotten through the arduous second phase in the mountains of Georgia, reports the Christian Science Monitor. They'll be vying for the honor along with 125 men. A third woman will get a second chance to take the mountain course over again, as will 60 men who also failed on the first try. "The coastal swamps of Florida will continue to test the students," says Col. David Fivecoat. "Only the best will be successful and earn the Ranger Tab.” One caveat: If the women earn the tab, they won't actually get to serve as Rangers and go on special ops missions. But the Washington Post notes that many male soldiers also earn the tab and go on to serve in roles outside the Rangers.