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Don’t know quite what I did to deserve this. I thought that I was helping your case.</p>
<p>You are always going to have those uninformed who question the MMA. They don’t realize that the MSC grows more each year, that our defense grows more dependent upon it. That the federal government, with each increase in the scope of its repsonsibility, must increase its resolve to maintain a source for officers to fulfill these responsibilities. That in itself is the mission of the USMMA and it is a d***ed important one.</p>
<p>It is when one commences defending the existence of the MMA with all the periphery that your credibility suffers. CEOs can come from elsewhere. Probably the same or greater ratio of CEOs to graduates come from the other service academies as they do from MMA. Heck, much of the defense industry would not be able to survive without these individuals. But I have never seen this emphasized more than being a perk. Not nearly to the near mission status which it seems that it has reached on this forum. </p>
<p>And I will continue to visit each time that I see reference to MMA grads being BETTER Naval officers than USNA grads. There is a lot more to being a Naval Officer than being able to con a ship or light off a power plant. The structure and manning of a Naval vessel allows this to happen more on board OJT as an Ensign than that of a commercial vessel where one is expected to be productive as a critical watchstander the minute they walk on board. It might even be like the flight student who shows up in P’cola with 2000 hours of flight time and flunks out. Too set in his ways to learn the “Navy way”.</p>