FORBES: America's Best College, How West Point beats the Ivy League.

[skinfan133]

BOOOOO!!!!!

If you want to be a coddled *****, go to WP; if you want to be a man get your ass down to the west point of the South, VMI!

Oorah!

[skinfan133]

Yeah because the institutions famous haizing isn't any sort of mental preasure at all is it.

don't even get me started on this. If you think the "hazing" at west point or plebe summer at Navy is bad I'd hate to see you drafted into service.

they get ****ing red cards to carry everywhere to indicate if they're 'too stressed out' by the upperclassmen when they're being yelled at. that's just ridiculous. The Ratline at VMI is loads tougher than anything the academies offer combined and the school hasn't had a successful suicide in decades. VMI churns out plenty of great officers in all the branches. If the academies got their acts together and got smarter and not weaker then they would be making progress in the right direction.

VMI makes warriors. the Academies should do the same, even more so since they all have 100% commissioning requirements.

edit: btw I might be a little biased, but it doesn't take away from the fact that what I'm saying is 100% true

[Redskins Diehard]

BOOOOO!!!!!

If you want to be a coddled *****, go to WP; if you want to be a man get your ass down to the west point of the South, VMI!

Oorah!

You would never hear someone refer to West Point as "the VMI of the North". Actually you would likely never hear someone at West Point refer to VMI at all

[Redskins Diehard]

They aren't among the Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff.

That's right. much fewer general officers come out of the academies. In WWI and WWII the academies provided the vast majority of general officers, that number has been going down and down and down.

Combatant commanders are pretty significant fellows. Would you argue that McChrsyal and Petraeus are not significant officers? Or that it would be more important to the military to have one of them as a Chairmen? :hysterical:

[skinfan133]

You would never hear someone refer to West Point as "the VMI of the North". Actually you would likely never hear someone at West Point refer to VMI at all

hahaha

West Point of the South is an old term anyway, back when West Point was more prestigious. These days we don't like to confuse our image with that of lesser institutions, so I apologize for that anachronism

Combatant commanders are pretty significant fellows. Would you argue that McChrsyal and Petraeus are not significant officers? Or that it would be more important to the military to have one of them as a Chairmen? :hysterical:

I know, right? honestly I think JMS has no clue what he's talking about here.

[JMS]

That's weak.

If someone kills themself because they were hazed in college, then they had some serious problems before they ever entered one of the academies.

And if a higher number of students kill themselves over a period of decades at the military academies than any other schools in the country? Then what?

If four students try to kill themselves in a month as happenned at West Point in Jan 2009? Is that still the students fault?

I don't think it's reasonable to claim it the students fault and environment has nothing to do with it.

Maybe someone should look at their family situations, instead of laying the blame at the doorsteps of the schools.

Oh so environment is a valid concern when they are at home but not when at the schools?

They only had the students for a few years, yet their parents had them for the previous eighteen. If their own families couldn't recognize that their children had issues, how could one expect the schools to?

Did they have "issues" before getting into the academies? Is students with issues the kind of applicants the academies seek? I think not.

[JMS]

Combatant commanders are pretty significant fellows. Would you argue that McChrsyal and Petraeus are not significant officers? Or that it would be more important to the military to have one of them as a Chairmen? :hysterical:

I agree but most Combatant commanders aren't from the academies, and haven't been for decades. My point was most CJCS aren't from the academies either and I showed haven't been for decades.

I made the point that in WWI and WWII the military academies had near monopolies in the higher echolons of the services. That hasn't been the case for a long time. The vast majority of academy cadets just don't progress up the ranks like they used too. Classes of 2001, 2002 half of all the cadets left the services in 2006 and 2007 when their 5 year obligation was over. The majority of general officers come from much more cost efficient and frankly better more rounded ROTC programs over the last three decades, not from the academies.

I gave the list of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs over the last 3 decades to illistrate this point. At one time 1 out of 8 was from the military academies. Currently it's 3 out of 10 because the last two guys have been from the academies.

[JMS]

Maybe that is because the acadamies only produce 15-20% of the officer corps depending on branch. For instance Over half of the Army is from ROTC, only 15% are from the service acadamies.

Yeah that's kind of my point. West Point for example graduates about 940-930 cadets every year. For the class of 2001 and 2002 50% left the services after their 5 year obligation was out. Only a small fraction of the senior officers anymore come from the academies.

http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2004/officers/commission.html

Further more if you look at the ROTC programs, they didn't really get started till the 1920's (Air Force and Navy) The Army had it much earlier.

Agreed. Also before WWI we really didn't train that many engineers in other universities and that was what the military wanted in their young officers. So there was a need for the academies because thats what the academies are famous for training.

If you want to talk about the best leaders the military has, most enlisted will tell you that they are the guys that are former enlisted. Many of them never reach flag officer rank though. West point Cadets I have run into are actually pretty sharp.I think they are more prepared to lead when they come onto active duty than ROTC cadets. Prior service officers are the only ones who have them beat when it comes to being ready to lead from day one.

But the figures don't bare out your opinion. The statitics show that the ROTC officers make up the majority of senior military commanders and also make up the vast majority of the most sucessful senior military commanders the CJCS.

[JMS]

If it was classified secret then a FOIA would probably not shake it loose.

Actually that's exactly why FOIA exists. To get classified papers, or to get the formal legal reason the information is classified.