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- <text id=94TT0413>
- <title>
- Apr. 18, 1994: Academies Out Of Line
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994
- Apr. 18, 1994 Is It All Over for Smokers?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- ARMED FORCES, Page 37
- Academies Out Of Line
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Declining enrollment and lost prestige raise concerns about
- their $1 billion cost to taxpayers
- </p>
- <p>By Mark Thompson/Washington
- </p>
- <p> Among U.S. military officers, they're known as "ring knockers"
- because they proudly wear the big, gold class rings they earned
- when they graduated from one of America's military academies.
- For generations the ring signified that the wearer was a cut
- above. No longer: the ring knockers are losing their grip on
- the armed forces. When Admiral Jeremy Boorda becomes chief of
- naval operations this month, five of the six Joint Chiefs of
- Staff will be nonacademy men who have come up through the enlisted
- ranks or from officer-training programs.
- </p>
- <p> Such meager representation among the topmost brass is just one
- sign of the steady decline of influence among America's military
- academies. They have come under siege by critics who believe
- they cost too much and should be radically changed. The U.S.
- Naval Academy at Annapolis, which is struggling to recover from
- a major cheating scandal, will host a discussion this month
- aptly titled "Service Academies: Leadership Crucibles or Magnificent
- Anachronisms?" All the academies are suffering from declining
- enrollment and struggling to develop a curriculum suitable to
- the post-cold war era. By doing so, however, they risk losing
- the very thing that set them apart. Last week a cadet at the
- U.S. Military Academy at West Point acknowledged that the school
- is no longer a rigid temple of martial arts and science. "I
- expected a very military environment," says Cadet Jason Squier,
- a junior from Norwalk, Iowa. "It surprised me that West Point
- is a lot closer to a civilian college than most people would
- expect."
- </p>
- <p> The annual cost of all three schools approaches $1 billion.
- "I just don't think they're worth the money we're spending on
- them," says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon personnel chief
- and ex-Navy officer. "It's hard to justify the cost given the
- other sources we have for officers." Korb, who is not an academy
- grad, and other critics suggest that the academies should become
- multiservice, postgraduate schools, where officers-to-be train
- for a year or so before commissioning, like the military academies
- of Britain and France.
- </p>
- <p> As the distinctions between the academies and civilian schools
- blur, the military honor code is what sets them apart. But that
- too is under attack, most recently in the biggest cheating scandal
- in Annapolis history. A special Navy panel recommended on March
- 31 that the Navy Secretary punish 71 members of the class of
- 1994, 29 of them by expulsion, for cheating on a 1992 engineering
- exam. What outraged many academy supporters, including some
- admirals, was the unsuccessful lawsuit, filed by 40 midshipmen
- implicated in the scandal, seeking to halt the panel's work.
- The middies contended their constitutional rights were violated
- by prosecutors who pressured the students to confess. Their
- litigiousness, said a four-star officer, "really bothers me."
- </p>
- <p> The scandal comes at a time when interest in the academy, and
- the military in general, is cooling. While applications have
- lagged at all three since the cold war's end, the Air Force
- Academy in Colorado Springs, which no longer guarantees its
- graduates a chance to fly, has seen applications plummet from
- 16,600 for the class arriving in 1988 to 8,800 for this year's
- plebes. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Appropriations
- Committee's defense panel, says the number of his constituents
- seeking congressional appointments to the academies has dropped
- by half in the past year. "That's beginning to worry me," he
- says, "because it's an indication that there are quality people
- who may not be looking to the armed forces as a career."
- </p>
- <p> Or perhaps they're becoming officers through the Reserve Officers'
- Training Corps or Officer Candidate School, both of which offer
- students greater freedom of choice and cost the Federal Government
- far less money per recruit. Students at some 550 ROTC colleges
- can study the military in addition to their regular schooling.
- OCS takes college graduates and gives them military instruction.
- In recent years ROTC has accounted for most new officers, with
- the academies and OCS splitting the rest. For the moment, the
- academies' share is actually growing, from less than 10% a decade
- ago to more than 15% today. That is because the military overall
- is shrinking one-third, but Congress has ordered each academy
- to cut its enrollment only about 10%--to 1,000 a class--by 1995.
- </p>
- <p> The cost, however, is coming under greater scrutiny. A 1992
- General Accounting Office report said the academies, which are
- free to the student, except for a commitment to serve for five
- years in uniform, cost about $250,000 a graduate. ROTC costs
- about $60,000 apiece and usually requires a four- or five-year
- hitch. OCS costs about $25,000 each, and its service obligation
- varies. The academies cost more because each is a "four-year-immersion
- experience," says David Palmer, retired three-star Army general
- and West Point superintendent from 1986 to 1991. "That's very
- different from ROTC, where you put on a uniform once a week
- and spend one summer training."
- </p>
- <p> Yet the GAO found no proof that academy graduates make better
- officers than those commissioned through ROTC or OCS. And promotion
- statistics raise doubts about the academies too. From 1972 through
- 1990, the share of academy graduates among generals and admirals
- fell from 43% to 33%, while those from ROTC rose from 5% to
- 41%. Under congressional orders, starting in 1997, academy graduates
- will have to compete against their ROTC and OCS colleagues for
- "regular" commissions, meaning academy graduates will initially
- hold "reserve" commissions, offering less protection against
- involuntary discharges. That's likely to depress interest in
- the academies even more. "Why should someone go through four
- years of hell," Korb asks, "when someone who doesn't go there
- can get a regular commission more quickly?"
- </p>
- <p> The criticism comes even from the inside. Last fall the Pentagon
- inspector general found the academies wasting millions of dollars
- annually employing nearly 400 military personnel whose jobs
- should have been eliminated or filled by less costly civilians.
- But West Point's superintendent, Lieut. General Howard Graves,
- has refused to surrender his $37,000-a-year sergeant-chauffeur,
- even though he has three other enlisted aides. "This position
- is essential to the mission of the U.S. Military Academy," Graves
- told the bemused auditors. His three other personal aides, he
- added, "cannot be stewards and drivers at the same time."
- </p>
- <p> Serious change will come hard because the academies have such
- a cherished tradition. John Galvin, a retired four-star general
- and top NATO commander, still wears the golden ring with a ruby-red
- stone that he designed for his class of 1954. "This place sets
- the standards for the Army for duty, honor, country," he said
- in his West Point office above the Hudson River, where he teaches
- political science. To survive in the future, the academies will
- have to set standards for efficiency and relevance as well.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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