Sir, while nearly every cadet at USMA will admit that West Point is not perfect, we do not appreciate a proposal to close all the academies backed only by anecdotal evidence and accusations that are completely untrue. While we are not as "closed minded" as you say we are, (I have sat in on a lecture by a gay professor from California on why Don't Ask Don't Tell should be struck down as well as sat through a showing of "Why We Fight", which basically attributes the War in Iraq to the whims of the military-industrial complex) we cannot tolerate an argument based on what you heard from "some" commanders and claims that we go to glorified community colleges ( USMA is the #1 Public University as per Forbes, #1 Liberal Arts University Overall as per US News and World Report, USNA was #2)
You may be on to something here, but please back up your claims.

Loyal til the End

A Ranger Lt, formerly first captain in his USMA class, was badly wounded in the face while leading troops in Afghanistan in 2004. One of his corporals, a celebrated football player, was subsequently killed by friendly fire. The unfortunate corporal was awarded a Silver Star, mass-eulogized by a senator running for President, on the basis of an action that general officers knew within days was falsely reported.

Seeking to distract from egregiously misleading public and senators, the Army blamed the LT for not preventing something that happened after he was wounded, on a bollixed mission he asked to abort and reset. While protesting to a board of inquiry that continued to leave significant facts out of the record, the LT did his duty, protected his 'superiors', was relieved of his command and sent down from the Rangers.

I read this morning that a cynic was someone possessing a sense of humor gone bad. God bless you, cadet Brigade Commander, wherever you are.

ps -after checking, I corrected the year given above, and removed the officer's name. For what it's worth, I would add that cadet first captains are rarer than football stars or mid-grade officers with great survival instincts.

Ok then Mr. Ricks, even though you did not give the same treatment to many cadet questions during your WP "chat" yesterday. Some of them were "snarky" as you would say, but most where legitimate inquiries...

1) I half agree with the cadet comment on core courses. Some of them seem to be complete wastes of time, others are actually helpful to our intellecutal development. A justification for most of the core courses is to promote critical thinking and decision making, a trait that will serve us when we graduate and we are placed in command of at least 30-40 people. Some classes actually accomplish this, others don't. However, the core courses do provide us with a broad acaedemic base to build on to whatever major we pursue

2) With regards to the cadet comment on intellecutal development: The motivation is either there or not, you cannot teach it wether you are at Princeton or USMA. You have the cadets that are just happy with getting by, then you have the cadets that strive for something greater. As has been cited in other comments, USMA is in the top 5 all time in recieving prestigious scholarships, such as Marshall, Truman, etc..As for me, I am a proud member of the Army Debate Team (Gen. David Petraeus was once an Army Debater)am doing research in the Department of Chemistry and Life Science to which I devote on average 2 class periods a day to, and am pursuing a chance to attend medical school following graduation. If you can't teach amotivation to learn by college, you are going to be hard pressed to do so regardless of where you are.

3) The Social Science Department is very professional. No disagreement here.

4) On the cadet comment on being cynical: I have no idea what he/she is getting at with the academic disincentivization. We are a military academy, academics is just one of the pillars that we are trained in. Cadets must be well rounded in order to do well here. A 4.0 student with zero social skills and in poor physical shape will obviously not see USMA as a good fit. As for the command climate, I will admit that there are good leaders and there are bad leaders everywhere you go. Better that people learn from their mistakes here than in some God-forsaken piece of land half way across the world.

5 There are good officers that come from West Point, and there are bad officers that come from West Point, just like any other commissioning source. Some of my best Officer-Instructors were once USMA cadets as well as ROTC.

6. Yep, life here is structured. No argument here. Why I would willingly have most of my day dictated to me, I don't know, call it insanity. But that is one of the reasons we are USMA and not a state college (or Ivy League school).

7. This is a legitimate inquiry: How will it be more cost effective to send the funding that goes to the service academies to ROTC programs? The funding that USMA recieves makes it easier to do larger military exercises during the summer, as well as fund what we call AIADs, essentially mini summer internships/ academic immersion programs, and semester long foreign exchange programs, where we send cadets to study in Jordan, China, Mexico, Ukraine (to name a few). Or would these programs not be transferred to the ROTC programs in the name of balancing the budget?

8. Go Army, Beat Navy

Thanks for stepping up. These are good comments, and I appreciate it.

Mr. Ricks,

Your "community-college education" classification of our nation's service academies has disturbed me. Although I understand you are writing from a sensationalist perspective, I feel that it does your critique and your aims of an open dialogue about the legitimacy of the service academies a gross misjustice.
Although these are widely available figures, I would like to hear your justification of this classification with respect to them.

West Point is:
U.S. News and World Report - #14 Best Liberal Arts College and #1 Best Public Liberal Arts College
Forbes - #6 Best College and #1 Best Public College

The other two academies follow close behind these figures.

Although I know you did not mean to insult the caliber of the cadets at the service academies, I feel that insulting the caliber of the education the cadets at our service academies are receiving does the very same thing.

While I was once-long haired, and always a peace-priority advocate, my father graduated West Point in 1942 and served in WWII.

I am concerned to hear cadets say that West Point is providing little intellectual stimulation and focusing on rote learning I would like to point out one thing that makes West Point stand out above other institutions.

The concept that makes West Pointers proud to have higher standards than their counterparts in other service branches
- is their honor code. ("the best ... system of honor in the world") This is very different and almost opposite the "code" used in the film "A few Good Men."

West Point Honor Code (Bugle Notes 1939, [page 101-103)

1. "No intentional dishonesty is excusable, and under no circumstances will it be condoned."

2. "Everyone is honor bound to report any breach of honor which comes to their attention."

3. "Offenders of the Code of Honor are never granted immunity."

4. "Quibbling, evasive statements or technicalities in order to shield guilt or defeat the ends of justice, will not be tolerated."

5. "The Code demands courageous and fearless honesty in setting forth the truth, regardless of consequences."

By all who knew him - my father was an honorable gentleman.
I believe he would give West Point the lion's share of credit for that.

My father and his West Point colleagues were some of the finest
leaders I have known. They lived their lives with this honor as
a fundamental way of life. Growing up with this code for our family as well - I simply didn't realize there was any other way to live.

My father probably wished the other services would follow this code; as should all colleges.

While we're at it - When are we going to expect our political leaders to set examples we should all strive for?

Is there any reason we should not have all elected officials in our country follow and uphold this honor code?

Then we might have a country that we can all be thoroughly proud of.

The senior service colleges do two things better than any other mechanism: teach the students how government works and raise them above service parochialism into a joint view of national security.

The price is a year's time out for each student (typically 160/per school per year, 5 schools) plus basic cost of running the colleges. The benefits show in graduates who go on to senior rank, heads-of-service, perhaps even Secretary of State (Colin Powell).

Unless the contributions these schools make to military cohesion, competence, management, and leadership can be duplicated some other way, cost considerations are on the margin. I know of no other means.

Service academies: not so much. The task of these institutions is to produce Baby Duck officers, but PLC, OCS, ROTC, etc. do this perhaps as well, and without the isolation and disconnection from the nation that these schools produce. Those academy grads who look back and credit their four years of extended adolescence with producing capable mid-grade and senior officers give too much credit to experience arguably inferior to the same time in a civilian university.

Mr. Ricks-
I try to track your blog on a daily basis but was first exposed to your article via a forward from a fellow classmate. From what I gather, this article has sparked alot of talk throughout the Corps. I'd like to offer a few thoughts on the matter, to include a response to points raised by fellow cadets in this forum. For background, I am a cadet presently on admin leave and currently attending a civilian university. Before USMA I went to college, did some enlisted time, and went through USMAPS.

1. From a purely educational standpoint I firmly believe that USMA offers, overall, a better educational experience than at either of the other schools that I have attended. This is particularly true compared to a large public university like the one that I am at now. There seemed to be a higher level of intellectual curiosity that was engaged by the faculty at USMA than at my civvie school. There was also far greater faculty accessibility at USMA than here, and the lack of TAs at USMA goes without saying. Lastly, my experience at USMAPS and at USMA really taught me how to write, something that I find sorely lacking in either of my civilian experiences. On the whole, I feel better prepared than my civilian college senior peers that I interact with on a daily basis.

2. Another area that sets USMA apart from ROTC and civvie schools is standards. I did time in ROTC and have ROTC cadets in some of my classes right now. ROTC certainly has a role to play, but I have gotten the impression that it is not as tight as USMA when it comes to inculcating a sense of attention to detail and standards. This is not to say that USMA cadets are 100% on the ball all the time, but they are certainly better than the ROTC cadets that I have interacted with.

3. That said, I think that USMA is fundamentally broken right now. The anonymous cadet that you quoted was right when he hit on command climate. When I would give people tours of USMA I would hit on the fact that I believed that USMA was the heart and soul of the Army. However, it cannot be so with a command that is seemingly more focused on appearance than on warfighting. I got the impression that higher leadership is extremely risk adverse, particularly with regards to the subject of sexual harassment/assault at USMA. I understand that this is an issue for which all of the academies have had pressure applied. However, it has gotten to the point where I know cadets who will not enforce standards simply because they may potentially get lit up through no fault of their own. I know of cadets who, in trying to do their jobs, have been railroaded by a command focused on image management. Don't even get me started on USMA command's overemphasis on Army football over warfighting. The Honor Code, which I strongly believe in, also seems to see selective application among higher leadership. Lastly, the cadet justice system, as it is presently constructed seems to be fundamentally stacked against accused cadets and, perhaps, even contradictory to the requirements of military justice. I assess that USMA as it is currently run is an institution fundamentally geared towards discouraging bold leadership and it breaks my heart to see it as such. Indeed, when I departed USMA a year ago, I was told by an anonymous DA civilian that the command climate at USMA is the worst he has seen at all of the academies.

4. There is also a larger picture issue concerning how DA approaches West Point. Right now there is no distinction between the commission given a West Pointer and an ROTC or OCS product. Heck, I've had this harped upon in briefings. Being a West Pointer used to mean something and there was/is pride in being able to call oneself a Regular. It might be useful to treat USMA as it once was: as the producer of qualified competent Regular Army officers who form the backbone of the Army.

5. Bottom line, West Point plays a vital role in producing leaders for this nation and it must be allowed to continue to do so. However, our nation and Army deserve to have an institution that is clearly focused on producing competent officers focused on a career of service. USMA needs to undergo a shift in command climate that will encourage the development of the kind of bold soldier-focused leadership that is so sorely needed in this war.

6. Kudos for using the still from "The Long Gray Line." One certainly gets a good impression of the impression that USMA can make on an individual and the devotion that it can inspire given the right leadership.

7. For Your Freedom and Mine. Go Army, Sink Navy!

Mr. Ricks,

I find your recent OPED “Why We Should Get Rid of West Point” to be very interesting; however, I am disappointed in both your arguments and solutions presented. As a graduate of USNA, and an active duty Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps, I think your arguments are short sighted and borderline contradictory. You pose a very simple cost benefit analysis between the Academies and ROTC programs and argue that merely shutting down the Academies will result in an equivalent amount of funds available to allocate towards ROTC scholarships. You fail to even conceptualize how this transition will occur or even consider the second and third order effects of this monetary-based decision.

Using your figures, graduating roughly 3,000 officers a year from the Academies would costs roughly $510,000,000.00 more than graduating the equivalent from ROTC programs. While this certainly seems like a large figure, I’ll argue that it is a relatively marginal amount when taken into perspective. I think it would take an equal amount of money to develop, construct, and maintain new facilities on college campuses to train and educate the same amount of officers from ROTC programs across the nation. This “idea” to shut down these Academies based solely off of a financial trade-off would likely create more long term financial damage and hardship by way of lost jobs, stifled local economies, and decimated tax revenues to the local governments of West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs. On top of that, I think a sweeping change like you suggest could negatively effect an entire generation of officers that are stuck in the middle of this vast paradigm shift. I completely agree that costs should be reeled in at the Academies, but at what expense? I’m not sure that “decentralizing” 4-year military educations to hundreds of different colleges and universities across the nation will be cost effective in the long run when considering the social and economic factors involved.

Additionally, on April 17, 2009 you wrote in your online article "From Ivy League to Olive Drab" about the increase in graduates from Ivy League institutions choosing to serve in the military. In the article you state, “The negative trend is, I think, that a significant portion of students are finishing at our best universities feeling let down and unfulfilled by the experience. It just wasn't all it they'd expected it to be. There is too much drinking and dope-smoking and too little sense of commitment to anything larger than one's own ambitions and appetites. Ultimately, they tell me, they didn't feel challenged to be more than themselves, intellectually or morally.” Your idea, published a mere three days before the “Why We Should Get Rid of West Point” article, seems to contradict some of the basic issues surrounding your reasoning for shutting down the Academies. The Academies are there because they represent an alternative environment to the traditional college environment, albeit at a higher cost. Students at the Academies are ingrained with the tenets of Honor, Courage, and Commitment and are constantly challenged over the course of a four year period. These students are surrounded by active duty officers and enlisted personnel, whom may not hold PhD’s, but have tremendous real-world, operating knowledge of the military and our nation’s current conflicts. In my personal opinion, young officers today are much better served by real-world experience and mentorship than by left-leaning academia with little scope outside of the classroom or laboratory.

In closing, I think your article lacked factual data and was slightly demeaning to the graduates, students, and faculty of our nation’s military academies. I think you present an interesting topic, but your solutions lack much substance. I would be very interested in some of your ideas to reduce the costs of running the Academies while simultaneously improving the curriculum and education provided. Certainly your military knowledge and work-related experience could be of value to the leadership at the Academies. I challenge you to spend a week with the “boots on the ground” at one of the Academies and report back on your findings. I imagine time spent with these young patriots will beat any day on the Ivy League lecture circuit or as a fly on the wall in a Pentagon briefing room.

Semper Fi,

Capt J.M. Kistler, USMC

Mr. Ricks,

Here is an article written by one of the "community college" students at West Point. I hope you will find it insightful.

http://newledger.com/2009/04/in-defense-of-west-point-a-cadet-responds-to-thomas-ricks/

I was shocked to read the opinion piece by Thomas Ricks about the Service Academies on April 19th. His self-interests aside, I think he would have been better served asking himself just a few questions and doing a little research before just penning up another article to get his name in print.

He claims that Service Academy graduates aren't worth the investment compared to ROTC officers. He mentions the higher cost of those graduates, but fails to mention that Service Academy graduates don't have the option of taking Reserve Commissions as their ROTC counterparts often do. He also fails to mention the longer active duty commitment required of Service Academy graduates relative to their ROTC counterparts. I would like to see him write an article where he adjusts his average cost calculation so that the number of tours spent in Iraq or Afghanistan is in the denominator.

He claims that some commanders prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, but obviously the rest prefer officers coming out of the Service Academies or OCS. Hardly a point worth hanging one's hat on.

He questions the academic rigor of the Academies. He seems to think that one can only get a quality education by sitting in large lecture halls with professors who focus on research rather than teaching. He should take his cause up with the Rhodes Scholarship committee. Clearly they have been duped by the "community college" educated West Point graduates who have been awarded the 4th most scholarships in history (and they did not even compete until 1933).

His limited research seems to lead him astray when it comes to military performance as well. He mentions that three of the last six Joint Chiefs of Staff reached the position by way of ROTC. He must have overlooked the fact that the last two reached it by way of the United States Naval Academy. Perhaps if he went by more than just anecdotal experiences he would also realize that while West Point only produces about a quarter of all Army officers, they manage to produce half of all General officers.

Lastly, I'm glad that he referenced General David Patraeus as an example of what a great education can produce. David Patraeus graduated from West Point in 1974.

Now I admit, I may be a bit upset because I am a West Point graduate myself. In my short five years in the military I only became Airborne Ranger qualified, served in Kosovo where I received accolades for turning around a poor performing unit and doing vital work on behalf of NATO's peacekeeping efforts, and finished my time as a newly promoted Captain in Iraq solving Army wide supply shortages - in a position reserved for a LTC. Not bad for a community college educated guy? Then I went to Stanford for my MBA where there were 8 Academy graduates in my class of 365, placing us behind only Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, MIT and Yale. And one of those community college Academy graduates even graduated with honors.

Since I am so biased, I will go ahead and post the West Point Director of Communications response. He is a ROTC graduate.

From the Director of Communications at West Point:

"As the Director of Communications at West Point, I feel compelled to respond. The cost to educate a student at a service academy is approximately the same as at any of the top tier universities, but the value is far greater than the cost.
Our diverse nation needs diverse higher education opportunities and the service academies provide a unique experience that strengthens our nation.
We provide not only 20% of the Army's second lieutenants, but also 60% of the officers with hard science degrees-and our Army needs those skills.
Furthermore, our cadets, faculty and staff are actively engaged in supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and West Point itself is a beacon of excellence that people around the country, indeed around the world, see as an example of all that is best in America: a truly national, egalitarian institution with a true belief in the values of duty, honor, country. I am not a graduate of West Point, but I don't want to live in an America without a West Point.
Mr. Rick's article has 6 specific arguments to address:

Point 1. "service academies [are] more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student)."
Rebuttal 1. A more accurate figure for the 4 year experience here is $202,000, which is equivalent to the 4-year cost of graduating a student from any of the country's top-tier universities . . . and those students generally take more than 4 years to graduate. And college and universities across the nation also receive funding from federal and state governments.
An accurate cost comparison takes a lot more analysis than shown in this op-Ed.

P2. "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."
R2. I can't address this specifically, as this is his personal anecdotal evidence, but this has not been my experience in 29 years in the Army-and I was commissioned through Univ. of Mass. ROTC.

P3. "Too often they're getting community-college educations."
R3. Nothing against the many fine Community Colleges, but in the past year alone, three national organizations have ranked West Point in the top 10 of all 4,000 colleges and universities in the nation:
. Forbes.com ranked West Point as the sixth best college or university in America as well as the most "surprising" pick-surprising even Mr. Ricks apparently . . . and West Point finished ahead of his alma mater, Yale . U.S. News and World Report says West Point is the "Top Public Liberal Arts College" [the Naval Academy was second] and has the fifth-best "Undergraduate Engineering Program" in the nation.
. StateUniversity.com said West Point was the sixth best in the nation, behind only Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Cornell, and CalTech. (Again ahead of Mr. Rick's Yale.) Furthermore, in the past century West Pont graduates have been awarded more than 80 Rhodes Scholarships, 4th most in the nation behind only Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Just last year our Cadet First Captain Jason Crabtree was so honored.

P4. "most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates."
R4. All of our faculty have advanced degrees, but approximately 50% are rotating faculty, active duty officers who do not have a doctorate. However, I challenge Mr. Ricks to actually walk around campuses of America's "elite"
schools and see how many undergraduate classes are being taught by teaching assistants-smart, hardworking and dedicated, but usually without even a master's degree. There are no teaching assistants at West Point and the largest class here has 18 students-the Dean has to approve any class with 19 or more students.

P5. [Send to ROTC and] "they also would be educated alongside future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of Congress."
R5. West Point cadets ARE future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of congress. While their military successes are legendary, their impact on the civilian world is just as great.
Currently, Dave Heineman is Governor of Nebraska; Rhesa Barksdale is a U. S.
judge; William Taylor, Jr. is Ambassador to Ukraine; Fletcher Lamkin is President of Westminster College; Daniel Kaufman is President of Georgia Gwinnett College; Marshall Carter is Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange; Marshall Larsen is Chairman and CEO of Goodrich; and Michael Krzyzewski is the Duke basketball coach. And 6 members of Congress either graduated from West Point or were on the faculty.

P6. "We should also consider closing the services' war colleges . . . Just ask David Petraeus, a Princeton PhD."
R6. Mr. Ricks closing example is outrageous in an article with the headline "Why We Should Get Rid of West Point" as General Petraeus is both a graduate of West Point and a member of our what we call our second graduating class, having been an asst. professor here in the mid-1980's."