Just use the military-centric colleges as farm systems. The VMI’s, Texas A&M’s. A one year indoctrination could count as one year of service. Shit, after 4 years at VMI one could spend just the summer at the academy and get their commission in the fall.
For Miley to get into Princeton he had to be very smart. Grant was more successful and he had the bottle.
A 4 year engineering investment stint at an academy gets non-productive once a guy gets killed in battle.
Another thing. Most of our military recruits come from the south and midwest. A discrepancy. Northerners seem to think service should be done by someone else. Still a draft is not the answer. Every congressional district gets awarded an academy appointment I’ve heard.
Common slur on Grant - he wasn’t the drunk that newspapers and rivals attempted to portray him as.