Quote Originally Posted by Old Eagle View Post
Has anyone developed a mechanism to assess talent, especially among adolescents we want to recruit?
When I was a Lieutenant, we LT's generally knew who among us were the top performers and who were the bottom of the barrel. Ditto when I was a Captain. The Soldiers also had a pretty good idea of who they were comfortable following into combat.

As for those whom we want to recruit, I would have to say that the same was true in ROTC. We knew who the top performers were and those individuals went on to be very good officers. The guys whom we knew were sub-par went on to be sub-par officers.

Regarding the assessment of talent prior to ROTC/USMA/OCS - not sure. Anyone can get someone to write them a good letter of recommendation. And grades/APFT scores are certainly not a reliable indicator from what I've seen.