...got in some substantial trouble at USMA. He was switched into my cadet company and our TAC officer (a CPT, later MAJ) was less than charitable with the lad. The CPT/MAJ didn't want a troublemaker in his midst. My classmate was lucky to survive the extra scrutiny, but suffered his punishment tours well and graduated on time.

He later went SF, was a hero in Afghanistan and probably had Karzai on speed dial at one point. You never know who will rise and fall, suffice it to say they are never the ones you necessarily expect.

I remember an Officer hazing an upperclassman at the Academy for hazing a plebe. The Officer said "who are you to say (s)he doesn't belong here, you are just a know-nothing cadet....and the way you are acting right now likely not fit to be an officer yourself. Your privates won't tolerate this nonsense"

An important lesson - that I obviously remembered...and try to keep.

The flexibility of the standards might have given the U.S a fine officer, but we can't disregard the consequences either. To quote so many different people "There has got to be a better way".

I believe everyone deserves a second chance, regardless of race or athletic ability. Drugs, cheating, and criminal conduct should never be overlooked or tolerated. I also hope the cadets remember when they got a break and pass it on to a good enlisted person who deserves a second chance.

There's no way to grade it, but the discerning -- who know of the non-academic performance of an individual -- can often see it.

I have to say up front that during my time at USAFA I didn't have a particularly positive view of recruited athletes. Their athletic season status shielded them from a great deal of the 4th-class year training the other freshmen cadets go through, and several of them flaunted that openly. Those who were on sports teams claimed that their training was orders of magnitude greater than anything the non-athletes took from the upper-classmen. Now, having been through the Academy, three attempts at Ranger School, and four Ironman races (and all the training that goes with them), I'm going to tell you unequivocally right now-- being a 4th class cadet getting your bags smoked by three upperclassmen at one of the Service Academies is the most physically miserable experience you can go through. It may not be the hardest or most intense, but it easily wins the "sucks the most" contest. So, this element creates a degree of resentment between the athletes and the "mathletes", as we call those brought in to balance the academic books. And that's where things start to fall apart.

Read an Academy recruiting brochure. They're chock-full of statistics on the "average" Cadet. Keep that in mind-- AVERAGE. Those statistics are quite honest, I assure you. So, to cancel out the academic performance of Dominique Neal to keep the reputation of the average Cadet intact, figure out how many guys you have to bring in whose IQs are greater than the number of pushups they can do. This creates the peculiar situation in which the only place the average cadet exists is in the recruiting brochure. As Twain said, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I'll caveat that by saying that there are plenty of "average" cadets out there. I ought to know, I was one of them. However, USAFA went through quite a rough patch between 1999 and 2004 over the recruited athlete program. Air Force PERSCOM suddenly realized that something like 20% of the classes were recruited athletes. That led to the realization of another problem with this trend.

Fisher DeBerry, the USAFA football coach (and the highest-paid guy in the DoD during his tenure) would bring in, say, twelve guys in a freshman class to play QB. There was some logic in this. With all that stress, it was more likely that a guy with a golden arm would come up with a report card that went over like a lead balloon, or that he'd just decide Academy life wasn't for him. They'd need a healthy stable if they wanted to ensure one horse would be around to help them lift the Commander in Chief's trophy year after year.

But here's the catch. First day of training camp all twelve of these guys suddenly figure out what their odds of ever getting on the field are. Six of them decide that this Academy schtick ain't worth polishing a bench with their butt and cash in their chips before sophomore year. The score after the first quarter of the four year program-- Football 6, top-quality officer training 0.

The double-edged nature of the sports programs at the Academies continues after graduation, as well. I wrote a story about the triathlon programs at the three schools a while back for Triathlete Magazine. While triathlon is a club sport, and thus doesn't get any special status or recruiting slots, I'm using it as an illustrative example. You've got Ashley Morgan at West Point. Recruited to run track. Walked on to the tri team just to try something different. Champion and superior athlete. Can't wait to get out there and deploy and lead troops. She accepts the fact that her athletic career is going to get put on hold while she goes and serves in a war, but that's okay because that's what she came to West Point to do. Her outlook balances the academic-athletic-leadership-moral components in a way that we critically need our junior leaders to. On the Naval Academy side of the house (and I'm not slamming them, it just happened there) you've got Tim O'Donnell. Collegiate triathlon champion. Battalion Commander at USNA and top-flight scholar. Went straight from USNA to grad school, from grad school to EOD school, and from EOD school to the Olympic Training Center and a career in professional athletics. We put $300,000 into an Academy education, no telling how much into his graduate degree, then trained him how to lead people in defusing IEDs. And by all accounts he was a fine leader as well. That's the kind of guy we need now more than ever in front of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, if he's been to Iraq or Afghanistan, I haven't heard of it. And if he hasn't been, then we missed our chance. He's out of the service now.

But if he takes gold in London in 2012 and actually says "I owe my success to the US Navy", then maybe it balances out as tax dollars at work. Such was the case with Chad Hennings, who flew A-10s over Iraq a few times and then signed with the Dallas Cowboys. He never forgot his roots, and always spoke favorably of USAFA. He served honorably and represented us admirably. If that's worth letting him shave six years off a ten-year commitment for an Academy education and flight school is up for the taxpayer to decide. That question should be considered in the context that, given the extremely rare occurrence of pro-level athleticism anywhere, the situations I described are outliers. They are the most egregious demonstrations of the system's limitations because they're the most extreme cases.

As I see it, the situation cuts both ways. The athletic programs can be a fine weapon. But the burgeoning cases of mismanagement indicate to me that maybe we ought to check our backswing a bit more.

Second chances should be earned. The best second chances are the ones that offer redemption in return for extra effort and commitment. Dominique Neal didn't get a "gimme" or a pass. A gimme or pass would be tantamount to a lowering of the standard. That extra year and a half required commitment on Neal's part and on the Academy's part. There was no guarantee that he'd meet the challenge, but he came through. He earned his second chance.

Kudos to Dominique Neal, but it's worth noting that he was recruited by USNA's track and field program, not the remarkably successful football program in Annapolis. All three of the major military academies can point to former football players who have enjoyed success as military leaders, but are those accomplishments a direct result of their participation in D1 football, or does the unique environment and intense, four-year leadership development process deserve some of the credit? Recruiting, retaining, and preparing a competitive Division One football program costs millions of dollars and generates countless ethical challenges for those military academies that choose to pursue gridiron success. Club sports, such as the triathlon program mentioned above, provide the same benefits of athletic competition (teamwork, sacrifice, sportsmanship, camaraderie, the pursuit of excellence) for pennies on the dollar, but without the national exposure provided by televised contests. While much of the expense of academy football programs is paid for by ticket sales, television revenue and alumni donations, the success and failure of these programs demands an inordinate amount of attention from Academy leaders, while exposing the academies to cyclical bouts of professional embarrassment when coaches, players, administrators or alumni lose track of the delicate balance between athletic excellence, academic integrity, professional ethics, and the academy mission. That mission, which produces fewer officers at far greater cost than other commissioning sources, has nothing to do with success on the football field. Unfortunately, football success continues to dominate the attention of Academy leaders and alumni alike, a situation that will persist as long as our academies compete with USC, Alabama, and SMU for gridiron glory.

As an old Marine corporal the only view I had of officers was from afar--as far as I could get from them--and I don't think I ever had a "ring knocker" as a platoon commander. All the lieutenants I dealt with, though, were excellent leaders and men, which makes me wonder how much we need service academies (I'm sure someone will tell me).
My commanding general in the 3rd Marine Division was MOH winner David Shoup, who attended DePauw University. MOH winner Gen Ray Davis went to Georgia Tech. No better leaders ever lived.

club sports are for people who can't make real teams, bottom line. we dont want the academies to drop D1 competition or the draw of potential leaders will diminish greatly. I would venture to say devildog had a bad run in with an Annapolis grad at some point in his career, and I would bet big dollars it wasn't a D1 athlete, unless tri-athletes are considered D1 athletes now.