Congressman David Crockett of Tennessee introduced a bill to abolish the United States Military Academy at West Point. He thought it unfair that the poor and less-educated were taxed to provide opportunities for the sons of the well-to-do and the better educated.
Davy fought well at the Alamo without a West Point education. Nathan Bedford Forrest told Stephen Lee that “If I had as much West Point training as you the Yankees would whip the Hell out of me twice everyday”.
Let’s reintroduce Crockett’s bill.
On the other hand, both Stonewall Jackson and U.S. Grant were lower-middle-class (at best) Cadets who made something of themselves in a big way.
Crockett was wrong in his attempting minimize those who were educated and therefore more qualified to withstand the rigors of West Point and ridiculing them to boot. Income envy?
We are cursed with “Equal opportunity” in being accepted to our Military Academies. This is wrong. What is desired is that young men and women should be accepted on the basis of their abilities and qualifications. If ANYONE, regardless of skin color, is accepted, they should compete and qualify equally just as the rest of the applicants do.
PS I am the Father of two Academy graduates. My kids worked their butts off to get their slots and to graduate.
The system of appointing unqualified individuals merely sets most of them to fail.