The Army has been screwing certain of their Officers big time over the last few (likely many) years.
I am of the mind that Point men (and women) do not feel themselves to be the elite as they once did. Many West Pointers are by the way, political appointees, of a sort.
When those butter bars get into the units, they have to contend with some serious attitudes from Officers who are agenda driven.
The Army needs to do some serious house cleaning, on levels that most folks do not ordinarily think about.
I could write a lot about what the Junior Officer Corps is dealing with, and I have never even been one of them.
I just know a few who have been.
Most of the West Point cadets, could get into any school that they want. They want to be West Pointers.
It has little to do with the cost of the education that motivates them to go there, generally speaking.
I can vouch for that bit about the cost of education... I turned down a four year full ride (everything) scholarship plus a National Merit scholarship to go to West Point, and it’s going to cost me more money to go there than my other schools would. I do it because I want to, not because it’s free.
Though not necessarily ideal in terms of being considered a control group - I believe the Army bears the brunt of the war in Iraq and Afganistan with boots on the ground - I wonder if similar trends might be found in the other service academies?
My brother graduated from Annapolis and went on to have a 20 year career in the Navy and the Reserve before retiring 5 years ago. With exception to extensive campaigns abroad while his family grew he loved it. However, he confided in me that the the Navy made it about as difficult as it could for him to stay. He said that their attitude toward him was that they knew he was going to leave so they treated him badly - this went on for 10 years.
Like many in the service my brother didn’t like to talk about this for 2 reasons; a) he didn’t like to criticize the service b) he told me that he was actually lucky compared to how others in his graduating class had been treated.
One shouldn’t look at this scenario in cold, hard technical terms, but if you remove all the sentiment of honor, patriotism and service to country, you could look at this situation in simple business terms with our personnel simply being “commodities” and “resources” driven by “market forces”.
Under such a scenario could any other enterprise survive in the market if it didn’t make good use of it’s resources? I should hope that some of the idiots serving our country through elected office would have a closer look at this problem, rather than being entangled in pork and non-binding resolutions!
God bless our troops for protecting our families!
I suspect that the leadership’s leanings toward a politically correct armed forces have a lot to do with it. Being an army officer is a thankless job in the best of times. When you’ve got to accommodate pointless bull$#!* in the name of PC as well, and your career hangs in the balance, then it could very easily become no longer worth it.
Not even remotely in the sense of the expression as its commonly used when discussing politics. Everyone who aspires to attend a military academy has to fight for an "appointment" first, from a senator or congressman, but the candidate's personal politics do not factor into the equation. Nor does the politician typically have anything to do with you if he or she gives you his or her nomination. It's just a process you go through when applying to a service academy.
I got John Kerry's nomination. I'm a Freeper. You do the math.