6 thoughts on “West Point”

  1. All the service academies need to be retired. West Point, and the Naval Academy, served a purpose that is no longer extant: Higher education in military specific areas.

    Now, we have universities and colleges for higher education (including the engineering that both specialized in) and the academies no longer emphasize military topics. The US Air Force Academy equally serves no useful purpose, nor likely the US Coast Guard Academy or even the Merchant Marine academy.

    Likewise, the institution of ROTC needs to be rethought and eliminated: It provides no additional value in terms of military education: Newly minted officers are able to more or less salute and wear the uniform, and not much else – they have to attend further courses to learn how to actually be useful. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the US Air Force, and in Naval Aviation.

    Commissioning accession should be through OTS type programs only – and for combat arms positions, after a successful enlistment as an enlisted man. This of course is not a guarantee of success (cf Spenser Rapone) but the alternative has been shown in many more cases to be worthless.

  2. If more officers and cadets had – within the boundaries of the law, of course – questioned the orders of President Johnson, the USA and Southeast Asia would be in a better condition today.

      1. It has been long time since I was up to date on the professional literature and I do not have time today to return to it. So I will let one major problem stand for many.

        “Failure to mobilize [National Guard and Reserve units] for Vietnam was
        damaging for the Army, which got most
        of the draftees. Its end strength, driven
        by war demands, rose from 965,000 in
        1964 to 1,527,000 in 1968. New units
        were organized from scratch and had
        little cohesive unity. Experience levels
        fell. Forty percent of officers and 70
        percent of the enlisted force had less
        than two years of service. Breakdowns
        in discipline followed.”

        https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2011/February%202011/0211force.pdf

        “The best historical judgment of the
        decision not to employ reserve component
        units-particularly the Army Reserve and the
        Army National Guard-in Vietnam is that
        Johnson had made an almost purely political
        decision.”

        https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA531975.pdf

  4. By all means, root the commies out of the academies but then also don’t pay for officers to get ivy league degrees.

    We also need to clear out the top ranks of all the services. Too many fat people who lack discipline and have a North Korea’s amount of medals but no real accomplishments.

    Republicans need to take their role approving military promotions seriously and stop letting Democrats elevate Marxists.

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