Agreed on the Army encouragement and incentivization of marriage...but that's part and parcel of Army culture too. And like I said, it discourages us single folks from entering. (Never mind that Forscom posts are always placed in areas where the local younger female inhabitants are chain-smoking obese single mothers.)

Considering that over 40% of young officers are from the South and considering where the posts are, I don't see the resistance here to the idea that the Army is culturally dominated by southerners. That's simply inevitable.

I also am unclear on what the opposition is to the logical point that 200 cadets at a relatively low-ranking school are likely to have more mediocrities and turds among them than 200 cadets at a high-ranking school, whether it be Carleton, Emory, the University of Chicago or Columbia. That's just a function of math.

A commander can't change hicks into diplomats overnight.

Until the economy changed everything (very temporarily), look at what happened with enlisted recruiting. They were mining ever deeper and deeper into the same zip codes, having to issue more and more waivers.