Point/Counterpoint: Are the Service Academies in Trouble?

[Schmedlap]

Thinking creatively in some situations kills one sooner than blind obedience.

I thought I covered that.

... rules that nobody can explain the purpose for... rather than thinking through a situation and determining whether the rule makes sense... They did not understand the general principles...

Think incoming (What's that sound, which direction is it coming from, is it ours or their's, which of my counter-battery options are best suited to returning fire?) instead of just getting in the ditch as a muscle-reflex.

It's actually funny that you use that as an example because I witnessed a 2LT in a unit that was temporarily attached to us respond to a 60mm mortar round by shouting "incoming, get down!" and then "this way! 200 meters!" That was in the middle of a city. Fortunately, most of his NCOs weren't quite as clueless as he was. Those of us with a little more experience realized that the proximity of the impacting mortar rounds was coincidental, at best, that the amount of time between rounds was more than sufficient to duck into an adjacent concrete building, that running down the street was an invitation to be ambushed, and that the greatest defense we had was not running away but simply using the cover provided by the urban terrain.

Yes, some things certainly should be motor memory, such as individual skills that are highly repetitive and applicable to all or nearly all situations.

Leaders need to be given a professional education, not programming. Leaders need to be able to identify those situations where blind adherence to rules do not make sense. The only way to do that is to understand the purpose for those rules. Military schools/academies/ROTC programs/OCS have a tendency not only fail to convey those purposes, but they sometimes adamantly refuse to convey those purposes even when prompted. That is not professional education. That is mass production.