<p>April 26, 2009</p>
<p>MEMORANDUM TO:</p>
<p>Brigade of Midshipmen USNA</p>
<p>Wing of Cadets USAFA</p>
<p>Regiment of Cadets USCGA</p>
<p>Regiment of Midshipmen USMMA</p>
<p>Corps of Cadets, USMA</p>
<p>Students at the War Colleges of the United States</p>
<p>FROM: John Wheeler USMA 66</p>
<p>Chairman Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund 1979-89
to Build the Vietnam Wall</p>
<p>Re: The April 19 Washington Post Article Recommending Closure of the Military
Academies and War Colleges</p>
<p>April 26, 2009</p>
<p>I. This below is all the Washington Post has to say about their piece by
their reporter Tom Ricks of April 19 recommending the closure of all the
Academies and war colleges.</p>
<p>Fred Hiatt is the Editorial Page Editor, apparently unconcerned with the
incompetence of his colleagues. He in a cowardly way declines to publish the
strong pieces of USMA Cadet Tianyi Xin below, and MG USA ret Robert Scales
below.</p>
<p>Those two pieces by Xin and Scales are so good that of course the Post of 2009
lacks the guts to publish them, since they show the incompetence of the
current Post Staff.</p>
<p>John Pomfret is the editor of the Outlook Section, the "commander" so to speak
for the wretched article which he failed to edit. He says nothing and cowers.</p>
<p>Henry Allen is a senior editor, a Marine RVN vet who disappoints by his
silence.</p>
<p>Andrew Alexander is the supposed Ombudsman.</p>
<p>Mr. Raju Narsetti is a Managing Editor of the Washington Post. New to the USA
and Washington, he seems clueless about the damage done by his staff and
unable to hold them accountable.</p>
<p>Rick Atkinson is the author of "The Long Gray Line," a former colleague of
Hiatt and Allen and knows the damage done by the Ricks piece in the halls of
the Academies and War Colleges.</p>
<p>II. Why We Should Get Rid of West Point
By Thomas E. Ricks
Sunday, April 19, 2009 </p>
<p>Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time?
Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the
savings to expand ROTC scholarships.</p>
<p>After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that
graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers.
Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of
civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC
student). 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.</p>
<p>This is no knock on the academies' graduates. They are crackerjack smart and
dedicated to national service. They remind me of the best of the Ivy League,
but too often they're getting community-college educations. Although West
Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual
firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's
faculty lacks doctorates. Why not send young people to more rigorous
institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a
military education at a short-term military school? Not only do ROTC graduates
make fine officers -- three of the last six chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff reached the military that way -- they also would be educated alongside
future doctors, judges, teachers, executives, mayors and members of Congress.
That would be good for both the military and the society it protects.</p>
<p>We should also consider closing the services' war colleges, where colonels
supposedly learn strategic thinking. These institutions strike me as
second-rate. If we want to open the minds of rising officers and prepare them
for top command, we should send them to civilian schools where their
assumptions will be challenged, and where they will interact with diplomats
and executives, not to a service institution where they can reinforce their
biases while getting in afternoon golf games. Just ask David Petraeus, a
Princeton PhD.</p>
<p>Thomas E. Ricks is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security
and author of "The Gamble," about the Iraq war from 2006 to 2008. He will
discuss this article at 1 p.m. on Monday at
Live</a> Q&As - washingtonpost.com.</p>
<p>III. Why Our Country Needs West Point
Saturday, April 25, 2009 </p>
<p>You will see that this small two letter bit is buried in the Post, very small
compared to the Headlines including on Page One on April 19 for the "Get Rid
of" articles.</p>
<p>Why</a> We Need West Point</p>
<p>As a West Point graduate who has spent nearly 20 years in the military, I
found Thomas E. Ricks's piece ["10 Things We Should Toss: West Point,"
Outlook, April 19] on closing the academy deeply troubling and insulting.</p>
<p>For more than 200 years, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point has been
producing leaders of character and intellect who have shaped our nation's
destiny.</p>
<p>Mr. Ricks made the outrageous claim that West Point graduates receive a
"community-college" education; I suggest that he check his facts. Among other
achievements, West Point has produced the fourth-highest number of Rhodes
Scholarship recipients of any college (bested only by Harvard, Yale and
Princeton). And where do you think Gen. David H. Petraeus developed the
professional and intellectual foundations of his success, including the
Princeton PhD that so many seem to fawn over? That's right: West Point.</p>
<p>JAMES HAYES</p>
<p>Lorton</p>
<p>Thomas E. Ricks devoted almost a third of his piece on abolishing the service
academies to closing the military war colleges, which have no connection to
the service academies. In fact, I probably agree with Mr. Ricks about the war
colleges.</p>
<p>Also, if cost were the only issue in deciding what should be eliminated, why
stop at service academies? ROTC is much more expensive than Officer Candidate
School and direct commissioning. The biggest reason for having the academies
as well as the other sources of officers is having a diversity of leadership
pipelines.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't know how Mr. Ricks can state in one sentence that academy
graduates tend to be less educated and more cynical about the military and
then in the next say that is not a knock on those graduates. That thought,
with its data based on discussions with "some commanders," reveals the lack of
depth Mr. Ricks brings to this issue.</p>
<p>JIM LUEHMAN</p>
<p>New Market</p>
<p>IV. The writer Tom Ricks cowers in a corner answering no question about which
Academies he has actually visited at all let alone for long enough to have a
respectable opinion. He flies the Pennants Charlie Bravo -- Coward and
Blowhard for his conduct and failure to step like a man to the Corps, Brigade,
and Regiments. </p>
<p>He owes you a manly apology and and effort to systematically and rigorously
examine the Academies -- which all graduates, midshipmen and cadets of all
Academies and students and graduates of the War Colleges invite.</p>
<p>John Pomfret cowers, pointing to Letters to the Editor, as if the tiny space
in the Letters column of this Dying Newspaper is sufficient to the
incompetence and dishonesty of Pomfret and Ricks.</p>
<p>The so-called Ombudsman Andy Alexander hides behind a narrow jurisdictional
definition of only covering news, as if he were not a man and professional
with a charter and power and his own voice.</p>
<p>No one on the Post seems able to choose, in the words of the USMA Cadet
Prayer, the "Harder Right" over the "Easier Wrong."</p>
<p>They dishonor the Editors of Old of the Washington Post, with whom I worked
for 30 years, including Al Horne, Meg Greenfield, and Steve Rosenfeld.</p>
<p>They do discredit to their Chairman Donald Graham and the Graham Family, who
have led the Post for years. Don is an RVN vet, 1st Cav.</p>
<p>V. At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, at the Vertex are inscribed
the Words Duty Honor Country. </p>
<p>They will be there long after the sad men of the 2009 Washington Post are
forgotten:</p>
<p>OUR NATION HONORS THE COURAGE, SACRIFICE, AND DEVOTION TO DUTY AND COUNTRY OF
ITS VIETNAM VETERANS. THIS MEMORIAL WAS BUILT WITH PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. NOVEMBER 11, 1982.</p>
<p>Vietnam</a> Veterans Memorial Fund - About the Memorial</p>
<p>You see in this Inscription from panel 1 West of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial the West Point Motto Duty Honor Country.</p>
<p>The West Point and Annapolis and Air Force Academy graduates who stepped up as
Graduates no longer in active service, pro bono, to get the Wall Built and
defend the design in the vicious Beltway fight to stop the Memorial include
those below. </p>
<p>Their actions show the emptiness and insult of the Ricks article, which looks
only at Cost of a Graduate, not Lifetime Value of Service to the Nation, or,
to Quality of Education:</p>
<p>Richard E. Radez USMA 67</p>
<p>Arthur C. Mosley USMA 66</p>
<p>Glenn F. Rogers USMA 66</p>
<p>Matthew C. Harrison USMA 66</p>
<p>Wesley K. Clark USMA 66</p>
<p>Michael S. Davison USMA 39</p>
<p>William Westmoreland USMA 36</p>
<p>Terrence O'Donnell USAFA 66</p>
<p>James Webb USNA 68 (helped with Congressional statute; resigned over design,
then helped with statue)</p>
<p>Thomas M. Carhart USMA 66 (helped with early operations; resigned over
design,
then helped with statue)</p>
<p>Thomas Jay Hayes III USMA 36</p>
<p>Thomas C. Shull USMA 73</p>
<p>Robert M. Kimmitt USMA 69</p>
<p>Edward Timperlake USMA 69</p>
<p>Kenneth Moorefield USMA 65</p>
<p>H. Ross Perot USNA 53</p>
<p>Paul W. Bucha USMA 65</p>
<p>VI. In Defense of West Point: A Cadet Responds to Thomas Ricks
By Tianyi Xin; The New Ledger, 21 April 2009</p>
<p>My fellow cadets at West Point, in moments of overwhelming stress and
cynicism, often compare our "rockbound highland home" to prison. Like
inmates, cadets are regularly deprived of a wide range of social
freedoms that "normal college students" would see as constitutional
rightswe are told when, what, and where to sleep, eat, and wear. Our
campus is secured on all perimeters by gates and security guards and
entry into and out of West Point is tightly regulated. Most of the
time, West Point feels more like the Panopticon than it does20Harvard
Yard. Thomas E. Ricks of the Washington Post voiced the sentiments of
many of my classmates (myself included) during periods of utter
exhaustion and pessimism when he declared this weekend that "we should
get rid of West Point."</p>
<p>So why do my classmates and I still stand proudly in the Long Gray
Line? Because we think its worth it.</p>
<p>West Points high standards of academic excellence are what initially
attracted me and many of my classmates to apply. Though Mr. Ricks was
correct in noting that most of West Points faculty lack doctorates,
all of West Points teachers have earned advanced degrees. About half
of our instructors are rotating active duty officers who bring more
than just PhDs to the classroom. Lessons about electromagnetic waves
are interspersed with anecdotes from the battlefields of Iraq; my
teachers bring to light the realities of war alongside abstract
intellectual concepts. They are invested in us in ways that reach far
beyond the report card; when we graduate with our heads full of
knowledge that they have taught us, we walk into the larger fold of the
Army that they are part of, and often serve on the same battlefields as
lieutenants under their direct command.</p>
<p>Compared with the large, impersonal classes of many of undergraduate
programs, West Point classes above 18 students require the Deans
approval and cadets have the home phon e numbers of most of our instructors,
all of whom we are free to call for additional instruction. West Point has
graduated
83 Rhodes Scholars, two American
Presidents, and countless statesmen and scientists who have made great
contributions to society past their active duty commitments. A century
ago, Theodore Roosevelt declared that "no other educational institution
in the land has contributed as many names as West Point has contributed
to the honor roll of the nations greatest citizens" and it is still
true today.</p>
<p>I would challenge Mr. Ricks to sit in on one day of my classes here
at West Point and walk away still convinced that my classmates and I
are receiving a "community-college education."</p>
<p>Mr. Ricks wants to dispose of West Point in order to trim the federal
budget in response to the economic crisis. However, West Point is
already downsizing; many of our academic departments and athletic
programs have suffered significant cutbacks. Our Commandant recently
announced future reductions in the size of the staff and faculty as
well as the enrollment numbers here at West Point. But how much should
we sacrifice? And will these cutbacks make America stronger, or weaker
on the battlefield?</p>
<p>In these challenging times of conflict when the rules of warfare are
constantly shifting, our Army needs officers equipped with the
knowledge gained from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. West 0D
Point provides not only 20% of the Armys 2nd Lieutenants, but also 60%
of the officers with hard science degreesdegrees the Army desperately
needs. The service academies alongside other commissioning sourcesROTC
and OCS (Officer Candidate School from which Non-Commissioned Officers
gain their commissions)provide a diverse pool of problem solvers and
decision makers to lead our Army.</p>
<p>Even more importantly, West Point has taught us the intangible things
that refuse to fit neatly into statistical charts and balance sheets
presented to Congress. Mr. Ricks cannot measure the value of the
camaraderie gained by roughing through a 15-mile ruck march together
one day and calculus homework the next; the sense of integrity
engrained into our psyches through the Cadet Honor Code; and the
ability to handle the rigors of day-to-day cadet life replete with
academic, athletic, and military requirements. West Point immerses us
in a demanding, high-stress military environment, and cadets
internalize the values of perseverance, integrity, and selfless service
among other principles so that they become almost second nature. No
knock on ROTC, but West Point cadets dont just attend military classes
a few times a week and fall back into to regular civilian liveswe live
and breathe military culture from Reveille to Taps (and often in the
wee hours of the morning in between Taps and Reveille).</p>
<p>West Point and our sister academies represent far more than just
service oriented undergraduate institutions. Our schools also serve
important diplomatic functions that strengthen ties with foreign
military forces. West Point hosts four year and semester long exchange
programs for foreign cadets from Austria, Germany, Albania, Kenya, and
many other countries. Last weekend, we hosted the 2009 Sandhurst Cup, a
two-day military skills competition where West Point cadets competed
against our foreign counterparts from Britain, Canada, Afghanistan and,
for the first time, Chile.</p>
<p>In trying times like these when American blood is spilled on foreign
soils in pursuit of lofty ideals such as democracy and freedom, we
learn that some things simply dont carry price tags. Though excess and
wastefulness certainly arent the right answers, there are some things
we should never surrender in the name of efficiency or
cost-effectiveness. How is it that in a time when government is
spending on programs, infrastructure, and bailouts at an
ever-increasing rate, West Point is judged expendable?</p>
<p>West Point is a crucible that molds us into leaders of character. We
cadets forfeit free time and sleep to endure pressures that most
college students would never put up with because we know the payoff
after graduation is something that cant be calculated in dollarsa
solid education that will prepare us to lead our nations sons and
daughters into harms way. Douglas MacArthur once noted that "in war
there is no substitute for victory." In America there is no substitute
for West Point.</p>
<p>Just ask the hero of Mr. Ricks most recent book David Petraeus,
class of 1974 West Point graduate.</p>
<p>VII. Dear Tom:</p>
<p>I read in your piece and in parts of your recent book distillations of
many conversations we've had on the subject of officer education. As you
know I've been toiling in the fields of educational reform for many
years. I also realize that I am responsible sewing the seeds of at least
a few of your opinions. So what follows are some responses most of which
you will find familiar.</p>
<p>I'm uncomfortable with loopers who list their cv's but a few things
about my background are important at least to summarize:</p>
<ul>
<li><pre><code> Eighteen of my thirty five years of service were in TRADOC
</code></pre>
<p>and
what is today NDU. I believe among general officers this is
unprecedented.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> After retirement I was president of a successful and large
</code></pre>
<p>private university</p></li>
<li><pre><code> I'm a West Point graduate, class of 66, the "Long Grey
</code></pre>
<p>Line"
class that Rick Atkinson wrote about</p></li>
<li><pre><code> I was an early advocate of the John McCain school of
</code></pre>
<p>academy
achievement graduating in the top five percent of the bottom fifth and a
first class sergeant.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> Both of my children graduated from fully funded ROTC
</code></pre>
<p>programs,
Wake Forest and Notre Dame at my encouragement. I strongly support women
at West Point but I thought my two daughters would be better
acculturated to the world by attending a civilian university before
commissioning.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> I earned my PhD from Duke on my own and did not teach at
</code></pre>
<p>West
Point.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> I've spent most of the past ten years as an advocate for
</code></pre>
<p>reform in military education working with various committees as well as
Ike Skelton and Steve Israel. So far my efforts have pretty much
failed.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Now a summary of our discussions:</p>
<ul>
<li><pre><code> The greatest failures in our current wars have been human
</code></pre>
<p>and
intellectual not technological.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> As we discussed there seems to be a curious pattern of
</code></pre>
<p>success
among this intellectual failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems that
the many of the most successful general officers share a distinct
provenance: they earned a degree in the human sciences and later taught
at West Point. This includes such men as Petraeus, Chiarelli, Dempsey,
McMaster, Eikenberry among many others of lesser rank some of whom are
loopers.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> It's important to realize how small this field really is.
</code></pre>
<p>They
come from four departments: History, Social Sciences, English and
Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. So we're talking about a production
rate of about two dozen per year among all the services. </p></li>
<li><pre><code> Of course there have been many brilliant outliers in the
</code></pre>
<p>list
of intellectually gifted. Jim Mattis and Jim Dubik come to mind. But
most of these men share the same passion for reading history and
thinking about the human side of war.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So, Tom, what should we make of all this? Some thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li><pre><code> The value of the service academies does not come from the
</code></pre>
<p>pedagogical pedigree of their faculties or the richness of their
curricula. All are top tier schools. But value comes from their ability
to attract very talented high school students to serve. Were it not for
the mystique of the academies few of them would have ever thought about
service to the nation. Second, the academies are brilliant at
socializing these men and women to the military tribe, a process often
very difficult in a liberal democracy. Socialization is vital in many
aspects of military culture: basic training for soldiers and marines;
ranger and airborne schools for combat arms; hell week, selection and
the Q course for the special operations community. For bean counters
these schools are a needless waste. There really is no pedagogical
justification for the attrition and lack of relevance of, say, the
airborne and ranger school merit badges for close combat officers. But
we all know intuitively that such schools add value that cannot be
quantified. I commanded a training brigade in TRADOC so I know first
hand that military socialization works. But I'm not sure any
psychologist can explain how and why it works. I jut know we should
tread very carefully before summarily altering a method that produces
outstanding results.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> So that's why it's far more important to have a combat
</code></pre>
<p>seasoned young captain or major with an MA teaching cadets rather than a
civilian PhD. Doctorates are needed to teach graduate students but not
for undergraduates. We have too many civilians and not enough upwardly
mobile officers on academy faculties particularly in the human sciences.
We need to change our criteria to make more not fewer Petraeuses.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> About every 15 years since the early nineteenth century
</code></pre>
<p>protectors of the republic have attacked the academies with particular
emphasis on West Point. They view them as threats to the republic, in
essence tiny bits of Sparta in the midst of Babylon. Many still believe
that somehow Jefferson got it wrong in proposing an institution that
they believe might threaten our political systems. This of course is
ridiculous. But only such a phenomenon can explain the vitriol that's
periodically thrown at these relatively small pieces of our defense
establishment.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So Tom the issue is not the service academies or the war colleges for
that matter. It's really how to change the techno-centric culture of our
military so that it's better prepared to fight the irregular wars that
will challenge us for a generation. As we discussed one answer is to do
a better job of educating our leaders. But this should be an additive
rather than an eliminative process. We have the most experienced cadre
of leaders in our history but these are practical men and women who are
intellectually levels deep but not terribly broad. Few have had the time
or the disciplined environment to expand their experiential base. As
I've said on the loop before we should:</p>
<ul>
<li><pre><code> Change the statutes such that our officers are rewarded
</code></pre>
<p>rather
than punished for learning. The enemy here is not the academies but the
various service personnel systems that reward time in the field over
time spent in reflective thought and intellectual achievement. Our
young officers are ambitious. If they perceived that study and academic
achievement were career enhancing we would not have any problem finding
academically qualified candidates to become future Petreauses.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> To make more Petraeuses we should offer every Army and
</code></pre>
<p>Marine
officer who completes company command successfully a two year sabbatical
at a first tier graduate school to study the art of war and alien
cultures. They should then be fast tracked to GO without having to squat
in some billet just to meet the statutory requirements for jointness.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> No officer should be promoted to Colonel without
</code></pre>
<p>demonstrating
proficiency in a language spoken by potential enemies.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> We should require the PhD degree for all instructors at war
</code></pre>
<p>colleges and we should give them the time to acquire the degree. We
should reward them for teaching through promotion and selection for
command. Again, this is a human resources not an academic problem.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> To achieve such reforms we must increase the proportion of
</code></pre>
<p>officers on active duty such that we create "waste" in the form of more
man years for study of all sorts: seconding to other federal agencies
and think tanks; long term attendance at civilian graduate schools;
attendance at more foreign service schools; time spent with industry and
as interns in Congress and the NSC. I could go on but you get the
thought.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> We need a chief learning officer in OSD someone who can
</code></pre>
<p>balance the insidious damage done by the personnelists who too often
make decisions about promotion and education policy antithetical to all
the above. He or she should be at the assistant secretary level.</p></li>
<li><pre><code> Promotion boards should see two files, one for duty
</code></pre>
<p>performance and one for intellectual achievement. Key strategic billets
in the Joint Staff and NSC should be reserved fro those who pass muster
for the latter as well as the former. General officer selection for
these key billets should be tied to the intellectual file. A stint as an
instructor in any service school should be a prerequisite for selection
to these billets.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I could go on but you get the point. My problem with your piece is that
its incendiary nature might deflect us from the greater task of
fundamentally reforming how the military learns and rewards those who
are good at learning.</p>
<p>Please don't take offense. Hope we're still friends.</p>
<p>Bob Scales</p>
<p>VIII. Here is a voice recording that expresses why the Academies will live as
long as the Republic. To cite a friend and classmate KIA RVN, Thomas Jay
Hayes IV, they are words that some staff and editors of the Washington Post
can never understand:</p>
<p>The</a> Long Gray Line: The American ... - Google Book Search</p>
<p>IX. A farewell to Tom Ricks : </p>
<p>YouTube</a> - Tanya Tucker - It's A Little Too Late</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>X. To each Midshipman and Cadet, and War College Student, Godspeed.</p>
<p>John Wheeler
USMA 1966</p>
<p>END</p>