Get up on Soapbox:
JAM, You’re 100% right. As most of you forum regulars realize by now, it is extremely competitive to get into the SAs. The admissions departments do a fantastic job of ensuring that every single candidate accepted has the academic ability to graduate. One of the BGO’s (and their counterparts for the other academies) primary job is to ensure that the candidates themselves really want to be there. The majority of the 20% or so who quit do so because they were there for the wrong reasons, many of those because either they or their parents thought it was a “free education”. Remember, the reason to go to a SA is to serve one’s country.
I can think of many experiences throughout my career, from being a scared s***less squad leader sitting in a rice paddy in the monsoon season in the Mekong Delta surrounded by VC knowing that the weather was too bad for our helo recovery and that we would either have to spend another night in the jungle or try to fight our way through the VC to the nearest river bank and hope the boats could get to us, to trying to get a helo aboard a small pitching deck in the North Atlantic at night to get a critical medevac. I loved my Chief to a fault, but if he had looked over at me that night in the jungle and said, “Well, Ensign, at least you got a “free education””, I would have probably killed him on the spot and gotten away with justifiable homicide. However, he died later from the Agent Orange he was sitting in that night, serving his country.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I am going to be melodramatic. We all say our generation was the greatest and that we had the roughest plebe years, the toughest wars, and the deepest snows to wade through to get to school; however, as a parent of a SA grad, let me tell you, it ain’t so. There are satellite phones now in addition to the email system which stays up during war. You will know what your SA grad is up to. For us old vets, remember the watered down letters we wrote to mom and dad? Trust me, in the heat of today’s battle, phone calls can get pretty intense. So on the evening of March 19, 2003 when watching CNN’s Kira Phillips announcing the news from the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln and that the first Navy carrier flight of the war is about to launch, you know it’s your son. An hour or so later when every SAM and antiaircraft site in Baghdad lights off, it confirms that the Iraqis were also watching CNN. Sitting through that, knowing that your son is the focus of their attention, brings on a whole new meaning to “free education” and service to your country. A week or so later, you wake up on Sunday morning to see half the remaining Iraqi army shooting into the banks of the Euphrates river in Baghdad. The CNN announcers state that a US plane was shot down and the Iraqis saw two parachutes. You know that your son was over Baghdad at daylight that morning in a two seat jet. Of course, modern technology prevails. Right in the middle of the sermon, my cell phone rings. “Hi dad. Saw the news. It wasn’t me. Gotta go debrief. Bye.” I’ve another 50 or so phone calls and emails, just as detailed, I could share. Pictures of his plane with holes in it. The night his good friend, they were winged together and in each others weddings, relieved him on station and when returning to the boat on the same route, was shot down by a Patriot missile. He left a wife and three kids. Heck, during that month we probably would both have ripped anyone’s head off who suggested that he had a “free education.” The service academies are about service to our country and this is what service is all about. Thank God, kids are born stupid and some of that continues into early adulthood so they think most of the above type events are “fun” and “cool”. Now I can sleep well at night knowing that he is just a test pilot and is going out daily and pushing some new type jet to the edge of, and beyond, its contracted envelopes. His little brother’s corporate salary is nearly three times his older brother’s.
So, bottom line, in the interest of personal safety, it is probably not a good idea, and rightfully so, to mention “free education” around most Academy grads. The above incidents are from a lone graduate. There are many thousands more. Go to Walter Reed and listen to some of them. These kids, and they are still kids, are our true heroes. Nothing was ever given to them. They earned, and continue to earn, every single penny of it.
(OBTW, as a BGO, when I’m sure that the parents are heavy into the “free education” mode, I break form and get personal, relating some of the above incidents. It works like a charm. Several “gung ho” candidates haven’t even bothered to complete their applications)
Step down off soapbox
) While not all kids can get into SA's, if they are made to follow the military lifestyle, serve their country & get an education, The Citadel is a pretty good match. A REALLY good one if they want Army. That program is the strongest there. Compared to what I paid for older son's college, The Citadel is far less costly. My younger son, did not get an ROTC scholarship for The Citadel but they offered up some good scholarship dollars from other sources that applicants don't even have to apply for. They take care of the paper work on that end. In researching the ROTC scholarships for The Citadel, the numbers read that second year kids almost always get the 3 year ROTC scholarship there. Ok. Here I sit in state so I guess thats easy for me to say.... Out of state kids sometimes get a full ride there though. I can honestly say that if my son hadn't gotten his appointment to USMMA, he'd be at The Citadel now in NROTC. Its a good plan B school. I'm sure VMI is as well. I just don't know that much about it.