Shaye Lynne Haver (born 1990) is one of the two first women, along with CPT
Kristen Griest, to ever graduate from the US Army
Ranger School
The United States Army Ranger School is a 62-day small unit tactics and leadership course that develops functional skills directly related to units whose mission is to engage the enemy in close combat and direct fire battles.
Ranger training wa ...
, which occurred on 21 August 2015. Haver and Griest were ranked 34th on ''Fortune'' magazine's 2016 list of the World's Greatest Leaders.
Early life and education
Haver is from
Copperas Cove, Texas
Copperas Cove is a city located in central Texas at the southern corner of Coryell County with smaller portions in Lampasas and Bell counties. Founded in 1879 as a small ranching and farming community, today the city is the largest in Coryell C ...
.
In 2008, she graduated from high school in Texas, where she was a cross country runner and soccer player.
Haver graduated from the
United States Military Academy
The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...
in 2012.
Haver followed in her father's footsteps and became a pilot of attack helicopters. Her father also served as a career Army aviator who flew
Apaches
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, MimbreƱo, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or CarrizaleƱo an ...
.
Military career
Having previously served as an Apache attack helicopter pilot in an aviation brigade, Haver is one of the two first women (along with
Kristen Marie Griest) to have earned a Ranger tab from the
US Army Ranger School. Haver was among a group of 19 women who qualified to attend the first gender-integrated Ranger School, which began 20 April 2015.
She received a certificate of completion and was awarded and authorized to wear the Ranger Tab on 21 August 2015.
Haver and Griest both said that they felt extra pressure to succeed because they wanted to prove that women can endure the same stress and pressure that men do when training. Since questions arose about the legitimacy of the program, many commanders and generals have spoken out in support of the women. Major General
Scott Miller, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, said he vowed before the program began that there "would be no change to the standards". Some critics argued that because Haver and her classmate Griest recycled, or started over, they were given special treatment or somehow didn't meet the same standards as male Rangers. School officials reassured the public that approximately 1 in 4 males graduate Ranger School without a recycle.
On 26 April 2018 Haver took command of Co C, 1st Battalion,
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Brigade,
82nd Airborne Division, joining her fellow Ranger School graduate Griest in being some of the first female infantry commanders.
When US Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...
died and
lay in state at the US Capitol, Haver led the military honor guard that carried the casket.
Honors
In 2018, CPT Haver was inducted into the US Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame.
Awards and decorations
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haver, Shaye Lynne
Living people
People from Copperas Cove, Texas
United States Military Academy alumni
United States Army officers
Military personnel from Texas
United States Army aviators
United States Army Rangers
1990 births