Why We Should Get Rid of West Point
Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.
After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military.
This is no knock on the academies' graduates. They are crackerjack smart and dedicated to national service. They remind me of the best of the Ivy League, but too often they're getting community-college educations. Although West Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates. Why not send young people to more rigorous institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a military education at a short-term military school? Not only do ROTC graduates make fine officers -- three of the last six chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reached the military that way -- they also would be educated alongside future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of Congress. That would be good for both the military and the society it protects.
Posts
2 comments:
I'm currently in BOLC for FA, and through my observations this man's argument is flawed. The reason officers come from a diverse background is because their are multiple comissioning sources. West Pointers here excel in many domains that some of our OCS and ROTC candidates are lacking in. I'm not saying they're smarter, just in some cases better equipped. The rigors of FA school require constant study, and those West Pointers are constantly the center of study groups. Our military orientation is in most cases more developed. ROTC does have some military schools and they usually stand out from their peers who have never had any military experience other then LDAC and a few other under resourced events. On the flipside, those ROTC officers with minimal experience bring large variety to the table, and are usually eager to make up for what they are lacking in. The number one thing that hurts West Pointers here is our attitudes. If its been hammered into my head before at the institution, I often go into autopilot in some of the more redundant classes. It might seem like I don't care, but I still have one of the higher averages here.
Post a Comment