"Wasn't this whole school set up in order to find and train the best possible commanders? The Earthside testing did pretty well – there were no dolts among the students. But…how were the teachers chosen?
"They were career military, all of them. Proven officers with real ability. But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think you should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.
" The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out."

That’s a very accurate description of America’s service academies and their graduates in the military as career officers. My reader who sent me this says Card was never in the military and "is not a flaming liberal." Well, then I am suspecting his father was in the military or he has a close friend who graduated from a service academy and got out of the military ASAP. Mr. Card knows far too much abo the way it really is to have gotten this from his muse.

John T. Reed

John T. Reed military home page

Link to information about John T. Reed’s Succeeding book which, in part, relates lessons learned about succeeding in life from being in the military