One of only 42 female Army Ranger School graduates isn’t gonna lie – “it sucks”

Sgt. Danielle Farber was the very first woman from the Pennsylvania National Guard to graduate Army Ranger school, and was one of the first two enlisted women from the Guard to graduate from Ranger School altogether. 

Farber and South Carolina National Guard soldier Staff Sgt. Jessica Smiley graduated from Army Ranger school on December 13th, 2019 after a year of training. 

While Farber is incredibly proud of her achievements, she’s not going to lie about how difficult the course was. 

“It was the hardest course I ever did despite being as physically and mentally prepared as I could have been,” Farber said. 

“It sucks. You’re cold, you’re wet, everything’s frozen, and you’re tired — you only had about 20 minutes of sleep — and then you get up and you have to do everything in the misery,” she explained. 

“All your squad-mates and the guys in your platoon, they get you through it. You 100 percent don’t get through Ranger School on your own.”

According to Task and Purpose, Farber is one of only 42 women to have received their Ranger tabs since the course was opened to women in 2015, and was one of only 6 women in her class of 4,000 people. Only four of those women made it to graduation. 

“[I’m] kind of used to being the only female when it comes to stuff like this,” she said. “A lot of people said I couldn’t do it, so I wanted to prove them wrong.”

Farber completed the course in order to improve her leadership skills, but has since used her new-found fame to inspire other young women. 

“I had a few students from the course I teach reach out to me, and they told me how they showed their daughter pictures of it and told their daughters they can do anything,” she said. “That’s probably one of the coolest things that has come out of it.”