The sorry state of the military/academic complex

Back when I was graduating from high school (during a relatively peaceful period in our nation's history between the Korean and Vietnam wars), the fortunate few graduates got a special appointment to either West Point or Annapolis and the rest of us just went to ordinary colleges and universities. As I recall, it involved a special anointment by one of the state's two U.S. senators to make it into either one of the elite service academies.

These days, however, attending a service academy doesn't seem like such a great idea. Let's face it, the life expectancy of a newly commissioned officer isn't as long as it was back in "my day." Not only that, if you listen to folks like Bruce Fleming, an English professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, the schools themselves are going to pot - literally in the case of at least one football player, Fleming writes. Here's just one paragraph from his op-ed article that appeared in today's New York Times:

"Instead of better officers, the academies produce burned-out midshipmen and cadets. They come to us thinking they’ve entered a military Camelot, and find a maze of petty rules with no visible future application. These rules are applied inconsistently by the administration, and tend to change when a new superintendent is appointed every few years. The students quickly see through assurances that “people die if you do X” (like, “leave mold on your shower curtain,” a favorite claim of one recent administrator). We’re a military Disneyland, beloved by tourists but disillusioning to the young people who came hoping to make a difference."

Fleming also says academics at the schools have been sacrificed so that now "mediocrity is the norm." The situation, while serious, is not hopeless, Fleming writes. He outlines a series of steps the academies can take to return to their former standards of excellence. It's worth a read.