The academy system is dying, that's obvious. How do you have a military academy that scraps Military History, arguably the ONE subject that should always be mandatory, as a course? Or one that fails to enforce rules from simple uniform standards to the honor code? Or a cadet arguing with an active duty field grade officer? Discipline? Virtually non-existent is what it looks to me.
It's lost its way, hit the rocks, and is taking on water quickly. Whether they can be saved, that's to be seen, but I'm doubtful on the will to save them properly. It would take unleashing a battalion's worth of old school Drill Instructors with free reign to fuck some kids up to put it back into what it should be. Instead, they're more worried about graduation rate and teacher satisfaction surveys than they are of creating the best military officers to lead troops into battle and save our nation from its enemies.
Mattis graduated from a small state school, and the bulk of the officers I looked up to were the same (mostly Mustangs too). It doesn't take an academy to create a great officer, and the real work horse leaders of the military are rarely a ring knocker. The services would likely benefit more from scraping the academies than they would suffer.
It's lost its way, hit the rocks, and is taking on water quickly. Whether they can be saved, that's to be seen, but I'm doubtful on the will to save them properly. It would take unleashing a battalion's worth of old school Drill Instructors with free reign to fuck some kids up to put it back into what it should be. Instead, they're more worried about graduation rate and teacher satisfaction surveys than they are of creating the best military officers to lead troops into battle and save our nation from its enemies.
Mattis graduated from a small state school, and the bulk of the officers I looked up to were the same (mostly Mustangs too). It doesn't take an academy to create a great officer, and the real work horse leaders of the military are rarely a ring knocker. The services would likely benefit more from scraping the academies than they would suffer.
