The U.S. Army’s Best Ranger Competition has its first female finisher.
First Lt. Gabrielle A. White and her teammate, Capt. Seth Deltenre, completed the annual three-day competition at Camp Roger in Fort Benning, Georgia, on April 13. White, a 25-year-old West Point graduate, became the first woman to compete and finish the intensive challenge.
White and Deltenre placed 14th out of the 52 two-person teams in the competition, which involves more than 30 events such as combat water survival, bayonet obstacle course, ballistic breaching, helocast, rope bridge, military knots and other physically and mentally taxing skills.
Army spokesman Christopher Surridge told PEOPLE that White is an 11A (infantry officer) “assigned to the Maneuver Captains Career Course, B Company, 3rd Battalion, 81st Armored Regiment, 199th Infantry Brigade.”
White graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in May 2021 and completed Ranger School in April 2022.
White’s past accolades, per Surridge, include “two Army Commendation Medals, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Ranger Tab and Air Assault Badge.”
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The Best Ranger Competition’s website describes the challenge, launched in 1982, as a “grueling competition, starring the best soldiers of the world.”
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Soldiers Kevin Moore and Griffin Hokanson won the 2025 competition.
Ten years ago, the Army started allowing women to enter U.S. Army Ranger School in 2015 — with Kristen Marie Griest and Shaye Lynne Haver becoming the first two women to graduate that year.
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