What I got out of COL Matthews article was that the intellectual and the political hack are often regarded as interchangable, and graduate degrees are a tool for promotion in lieu of military competence. He cited many examples of senior leaders with remarkable intellectual accomplishments who denigrated the "intellectual officers" coming from things like White House fellowships.

It almost came across as a cop-out; 'I can't slam political hacks 'cause there is one (or more) in my rating chain, so I'll slam their achievements (and ignore my three masters degrees).' Rather than take people to task for being suck-ups, attack them for being thinkers not doers.

I suggest that the U.S. Army does have intellectuals, but unless they want to get tarred with the careerist/politician brush, they are forced to conceal it (much like telling the young MI 2LT to go to the gym so combat arms guys will be more inclined to listen to him.)

[rant] This is closely tied to the problems with staff work in the Army; staff officers are treated with contempt, staff assignments are considered ugly chores at best but more often looked at as punishment, most folks strive to minimize staff time, no job on staff is considered as hard or as important to professional development as command at an equal rank, but leaders whine that noone can do good staff work. Yeah, treat staff poorly, put your high-speed best people in command, then wonder why staff work isn't of the best quality; great plan. (BTW - excellent sources report the Air Force has the same problem.) And in the Army's infinite wisdom, CAS3 has been dismantled and passed to the branches, where it is not a priority... [/rant]

There's still hope, if we can pressgang GEN Caldwell and GEN Patreus to stick around for five or eight more years, we might be able to hold onto some of the gains in appreciation of intellectual achievement by soldiers.