<p>For most freshmen move in day is two months away.</p>
<p>For the first year students @ the service academies
USMA(West Point),USNA, USAFA, USCGA & USMMA
the move in day is Monday, June 27 (give or take a day)
Many of these future military officers forgone
the opportunities to attend the most prestigious
colleges & universities in the USA. My hat is off
to all of the young men & women entering the
service academies. They are some of the brightest
& most talented students the high school class of
2005 has to offer.</p>
<p>As a parent, I have to ask a question to other parents
& students. In light of the 5 year military commitment
& the ongoing war of terriorism, is the free excellent
education worth the price of potentially being placed
in harm’s way?</p>
<p>proud2bherdad, as a retired military officer I must remind you that officer candidates attend military academies not because it is a free education measured against a risk of combat (or at least they shouldn’t), but to become the officers that will lead the military in service to and defense of our country. I’m certain your D has thought through this. No one wants to see combat. But, the truth is, this is the mission of the military. It “goes with the territory” and all cadets know this. God bless your wonderful brave D.</p>
<p>As a 17 year old college freshmen with
Vietnam War draft # of 93 and having
4 other brothers do duty in Vietnam
my family understands the mission of
the military. I understand and can
appreciate the current state of the military
recruiting programs in that my brother is
the retired Command-Sargent-Major
responsible for all of the U.S. Army’s
recruiting programs in North America.</p>
<p>Would you attend/send your
sons or daughters to the service
academies to obtain an excellent
education given the following</p>
<h1>1 Our country is @ war?</h1>
<h1>2 Our country is not @ war?</h1>
<p>Early in her sophomore year of HS
my D was interested in the academies.
When it came time to make a decision
she decided not to attend.</p>
<p>Attending a military academy is both a choice and a priviledge. The question is not whether I would send my sons to one, but how much I would resist if they decided they wanted to go. I’m not going to “send” any child old enough to go to college anywhere.</p>
<p>Whether or not we were at war at the time shouldn’t be much of an issue. You shouldn’t attend an academy unless you assume the country would be at war when you graduate. The academies’ purpose is not to provide an excellent education for your benefit. It’s to prepare you to lead in the military, a military who’s primary purpose is to prepare for war. By definition, war would become your business. </p>
<p>At least as far as my track record with my kids goes so far, I would probably make sure they knew what they were getting into and that they fully understood the decision they were making including the full implications of the paragraph just above, but nothing more. I’ve let them make decisions I wouldn’t for myself before and, I admit, I’ve vetoed some. The difference bertween the two was the degree to which I believed they were ready to make a particular decision. Even then I hope I usually helped them understand what would make me think they were ready.</p>
<p>Our kids are not fully grown at 18 when mine graduated from high school, I know, but in this, if they know what they’re getting into, they’re old enough to decide for themselves.</p>
<p>BTW, it was probably harder for me to write this out than it would have been to make the actual decision. If you asked whether I’d pay private school tuition to send a child to college to get a degree in art with which I knew he could never support himself, now that would have been a hard question.</p>
<p>There was a lovely issue of Time devoted to ‘The class of 2001’, the class that entered West Point in 2001 and graduated this year. If you can get it, you should read it. West Point, the Naval Academy, The Air Force Academy is not for everyone. </p>
<p>On top of the rigors of an excellent education, it involves a very rigorous life of discipline and training that not everyone is ready for or willing to participate in. There is a time when a cadet must sign something saying they are committed to being military officers. That point is taken very very seriously. Many drop out then.</p>
<p>I have nothing but admiration for these young, bright officers who have a very bright future ahead of them, if only, they stay alive while the US is at war.</p>
<p>P2BHD, I do not have a romanticized view of the military but view service as noble, honorable, and necessary. If one wishes to commit to that service, the service academies are a fine way to go. N.B., I worked for the Navy as a civilian fresh out of high school while the Southeast Asian War Games were still running hot and I considered military service myself. However, after seeing the Navy from the inside and checking the definition of “insurbordination” I decided that it wouldn’t be prudent…I probably would have made an excellent staff officer and there was no way in hell that I would survive the system to get there. But I digress.</p>
<p>The factor of the country being at war or not a war would not influence my decision or counsel one way or the other. I take it as a given that if you join the military that at some point you will come in harm’s way in your country’s service. </p>
<p>However, I think the cold essential fact is that when you join the military you become an instrument of the state and you need to accept that. Loyalty to the unit, where everyone’s survival is dependent on the performance of every individual becomes in-bred reflex; loyalty to the service almost as much so.</p>
<p>The problem, exacerbated when conditions include stop-loss orders, inadequate supplies, and missions assigned with insufficient consideration, demands at the minimum a fairly high order of sacrifice over and beyond what’s generally considered implicit in the word.</p>
<p>And then as a service academy grad, there are eternal verities to remember, such as the fact that if O-1’s and O-2’s survive long enough to become effective it’s because of good E-7’s and E-8’s and that it’s rare for an O-6 to be leveled with by anyone below an O-5. Or such is my view based on long observation.</p>
<p>Thucydides wrote:<br>
“I say to you men of peace - you are only safe as long as you have men of war on your side.” My hat is off to anyone who serves in the military, in war or in peace.</p>