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2008-02-11 Home Front: WoT

While U of M campus sleeps, our military leaders are born

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Posted by 2008-02-11 08:44|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 The character of ROTC changes even more than the character of the military, depending on circumstances.

That is, with an extended peacetime, the big emphasis in ROTC is academics, because unless the student graduates, they don't get commissioned.

But when the military is expanding and preparing for war, suddenly the emphasis shifts to extreme physical preparedness. This often begins a year or two before actual hostilities have even begun.
This regime continues through whatever conflict, until the ROTC cadre begins to be replaced with combat veterans.

The vets are focused on teaching the most practical tactics, with emphasis on their life and death consequences. They are willing to accept lower physical standards and appearance, as long as cadets have both high lethality and survivability. Cadets from such programs are neither handsome nor particularly buff, but are decidedly murderous.

Ironic, in that few of them will ever get to practice their skills, in that the conflict is over. So the emphasis again returns to their academics, to insure that they graduate so they will become commissioned.

Fortunately, one other cycle, that of militarism over militancy, has to a great extent fallen by the wayside. The militarism of snappy dress uniforms, drill & ceremonies, military bands and other such window dressing, has long taken a back seat to core performance.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-02-11 09:10|| 2008-02-11 09:10|| Front Page Top

#2 That's true at West Point too, 'moose. They've been doing serious combat training exercises for the last few years, including IED detection and survival.

Posted by lotp 2008-02-11 09:25|| 2008-02-11 09:25|| Front Page Top

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