Their own Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying “The government you elect is government you deserve.”
In war time yes. Less so in peace time. The longer the peace the more the military 'adjusts' itself to the needs of peacetime at the expense of keeping the military at a constant state of readiness (or near readiness).The military is a bunch of institutions / bureaucracies. You can identify duds, you expect that the institution / bureaucracy removes them.
The failure can more easily be diagnosed than in the political system.
There lies the inherent weakness in most militaries (which have to rely on mobilisation in time of war). You can produce soldiers in a matter of months from scratch but not so with senior NCOs and senior officers. The inability in peace time to 'test' officers on the way up also contributes to those able to 'game' the system to get promoted to senior officer level.edit: Of how many generals and colonels got Marschall rid of in WW2 because of their incompetence? IIRC it was about 500. In the midst of a huge force expansion (multiplication) with a huge scarcity of formally qualified officers.
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