military academy grads deserve better

[jefhatfield]

i used to live in a major military town...the town is the same, but the base moved out (long sad story)

but i met a lot of soldiers over the years and one thing i could not figure out was, why do the west pointers only end up with 2nd lt. status after 4 grueling years at the academy?

the local junior college has a 2 year rotc program which made a lot of 2nd lts that ended up on the same base...they would later get their ba at the navy school (for all forces) when they were a more senior level officer

why not let the academy grads enter at a higher grade/rate/pay?

just a thought

ps - i don't knock rotc or jrotc...gen. colin powell was an rotc student from CCNY

[mactastic]

Not many of the top brass come from ROTC, the same as very few presidents come from public universities. Military academy is a path to the top, much as Yale, Harvard etc are paths to the top in the civilian world.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by mactastic
Not many of the top brass come from ROTC, the same as very few presidents come from public universities. Military academy is a path to the top, much as Yale, Harvard etc are paths to the top in the civilian world.

still very few people make it to general anyway...but academy grads stand a far better chance to make general and powell is the first rotc person to make it to chairman joint chiefs of staff

as for pulicly educated presidents, the only one i can think of recently in the past 75 years was lyndon johnson who went to texas teacher's college...he once commented that when he entered that school, being president someday was not something he considered a future career move ;)

bush and bush jr were yalies, fdr a columbia man, kennedy went to harvard and bush jr also got his master's there, clinton went to yale law as did his wife, candidates like liz dole went to harvard law, dukakis was a harvard man, and i assume other kennedy policians favored harvard

[BaghdadBob]

I thought Clinton went to Harvard? Was that before law?

OT...Maynard James Keenan went to academy, and look where it got him!

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by BaghdadBob
I thought Clinton went to Harvard? Was that before law?

OT...Maynard James Keenan went to academy, and look where it got him!

i think before yale law school, clinton went to georgetown university and did a rhoads scholarship at oxford university