A female second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corp claims that the training course required to become an Infantry Officer is set up to make women fail.

Lieutenant Sage Santangelo, along with twelve other women, dropped out of the Marine Infantry Officer Course on the very first day of training in January 2014. A grueling and physically demanding process, the course is required for any Marine who wants to become an infantry officer. Only one woman made past the first day, but she too failed.

"There came a point when I could not persuade my body to perform," Santangelo wrote in a recent article in The Washington Post. "It wasn't a matter of will but of pure physical strength. My mind wanted more, but my muscles quivered in failure after multiple attempts. I began to shiver and I got cold. I was told I could not continue."

Santaneglo and the other women are the first to attempt the course ever since the ban on women in ground combat was lifted last year. But though the ban was lifted, Santangelo said unequal training standards for women contribute to why no woman to date has been able to join. On top of that, men who fail the test are allowed a second try. Women are not.       

"I believe that I could pass, and that other women could pass, if the standards for men and women were equal from the beginning of their time with the Marines, if endurance and strength training started earlier than the current practice for people interested in going into the infantry, and if women were allowed a second try, as men are," Santangelo, who is 5 feet 3 inches tall, wrote.

It appears the Marine Corp took Santangelo's letter to heart. Women are now allowed to re-try the infantry training course, a move that could help the military meet its 2016 goal of fully abolishing the ban.

Santangelo, however, will not try the training course a second time. General James F. Amos, who announced that women can now re-take the test, also offered Santangelo a post in Afghanistan, according to The Washington Post.