World Exchange; No Excuse, Sir

<v Col. Roy K Flint>Ever since [audio goes out] ?colonial? days, the Hudson River, uh <v Col. Roy K Flint>Lake George, Lake Champlain route had been used as an invasion <v Col. Roy K Flint>route for armies either moving north toward the French in Canada or south <v Col. Roy K Flint>toward the English in New York. We're sitting uh on the banks <v Col. Roy K Flint>of the Hudson River. At that point, at which chain, the great <v Col. Roy K Flint>chain that was strung between Constitution Island and West Point was located <v Col. Roy K Flint>during the American Revolutionary War. <v Henry S. Commager>Nowhere was the contrast between the new American nation and the nations <v Henry S. Commager>of the Old World more dramatic than in the attitude toward the military. <v Henry S. Commager>The military was the establishment in all old world nations. <v Henry S. Commager>The sovereign was also the commander in chief of the armies and determined on war and <v Henry S. Commager>peace. In the new world, the attitude toward the military was one <v Henry S. Commager>of hostility and suspicion. <v Henry S. Commager>And how interesting it is that almost all the state constitutions wrote into <v Henry S. Commager>the the fundamental document that the uh civil shall always

<v Henry S. Commager>be superior to the military or as John Adams wrote in the <v Henry S. Commager>Massachusetts Constitution. <v Henry S. Commager>There should always be an exact subordination of the military to the <v Henry S. Commager>civilian power. [music plays] <v Speaker>[birds chirping] [explosion] [alarm clock ringing]

<v Cadet Ed Ruggero>There are times when I wonder what I'm doing here or <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>whether or not it's it's gonna be worth it all in the end or whether I can stand another <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>hour of it. There are times when I and I think that if one more day, it'll just drive me <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>absolutely bonkers. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>And yet there are other times, too, that I feel I wouldn't trade places with anyone else. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>Uh I don't I don't feel terribly constrained by the the value systems they impose <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>because there is a difference between internalizing values and just living under a <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>system. It's after three years, it's easy for me to comply with the regulations. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>It's just a matter of of going through the routine. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>However, the things that I choose to internalize as my own values are <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>are really what's important.

<v Cadet Ed Ruggero>[inaudible yelling] There is definitely a sense of being forced to live under a <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>particular system, but I don't think that they try and force their value system upon you. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>And uh what I'm talking about uh a sense of uh integrity and and I <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>guess it's summed up best by the Academy's motto: Duty, Honor, Country. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>[inaudible yelling] <v Joseph J. Ellis>Many people think of the best uh product of the Academy. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Well, they think of it in various ways. But um the academy sometimes makes itself sound <v Joseph J. Ellis>as if it were a kind of Harvard um or a kind of Fort <v Joseph J. Ellis>Benning. And so on the one hand, you would think that the best product of the Academy <v Joseph J. Ellis>would be a kind of uh professor or scholar. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um on the other hand, you would think that the best product would be if the Fort Benning <v Joseph J. Ellis>metaphor holds true, a kind of grisly killer, um a <v Joseph J. Ellis>sort of George Patton Junior who likes to see the arms and the legs fly.

<v Joseph J. Ellis>In fact, I think that the uh from my point of view, the prototypical and <v Joseph J. Ellis>representative West Point graduate, the epitome would be someone like an astronaut <v Joseph J. Ellis>um that represents the kind of thing that West Pointers probably can do <v Joseph J. Ellis>better than the graduates of any other institution in this country, organized, <v Joseph J. Ellis>um disciplined um committed to a particular national cause, um <v Joseph J. Ellis>able to submerge their own individual interests and the interests of something larger <v Joseph J. Ellis>and technically proficient with some kind of an engineering background or something <v Joseph J. Ellis>that allows them to understand machinery. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um those are the kind of uh pioneers that the country needs, I guess um and West Point's <v Joseph J. Ellis>liable to produce that, but they're not liable to produce some of the other things <v Joseph J. Ellis>that we sometimes look to them for um within the academy ground, they always <v Joseph J. Ellis>say that, you know, the hero should always get line up at the rear. <v Joseph J. Ellis>They're not looking for people who um are that unorthodox or that

<v Joseph J. Ellis>um erratic. We're predictable. <v Joseph J. Ellis>People who perform under stress in a calm and efficient way. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Neil Armstrong would be a good example. <v General Maxwell Taylor>I think it's well to understand the position of West Point in the structure of military <v General Maxwell Taylor>education of the American army, uh it is simply the <v General Maxwell Taylor>the basic the cornerstone, if you will, of the officer corps. <v General Maxwell Taylor>And only a small part of it. <v General Maxwell Taylor>West Point does not presume to produce a a qualified officer or even a junior <v General Maxwell Taylor>officer. But as soon as one graduates from West Point, he is really <v General Maxwell Taylor>a sort of generalist as a a lieutenant possible aspirant <v General Maxwell Taylor>with a general education for all branches of the service. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Then he goes to his own school. If he's an artillery man he goes to Fort ?Shill? <v General Maxwell Taylor>and stays a year to qualify as a battery grade officer in the artillery. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Then after practicing his profession for three or four years, you'll come back <v General Maxwell Taylor>again to, say, Fort ?Shill?. And there he gets advanced work preparing to command up to

<v General Maxwell Taylor>the battalion. After that, if he's promising, he'll be selected to go to the command and <v General Maxwell Taylor>General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, where he studies then the combined arms, <v General Maxwell Taylor>how they're put together to form artillery, infantry engineers, signal corps. <v General Maxwell Taylor>[shouting command] Then following that it, again practicing ?his? <v General Maxwell Taylor>profession, if he is uh among the very most promising officers, he'll go to the War <v General Maxwell Taylor>College in Washington. And there the level of interest is that of the level of the <v General Maxwell Taylor>government. He sees for the first time how the the military establishment meshes with the <v General Maxwell Taylor>civilian government and relationships between civilian and military leadership at <v General Maxwell Taylor>the very top. So West Point is the starting point, a very important one, but far being <v General Maxwell Taylor>the entire requirement for a professional officer. <v Man 1>?First? sergeant. [inaudible yelling] [march playing] <v Cadet James Coe>I've seen the movies. I thought it was a free education.

<v Cadet James Coe>It ranked with Ivy League schools and I said hey that'd be a nice thing to do, maybe go <v Cadet James Coe>to school there some time like I dreamed about and then just kind of forgot about it. <v Cadet James Coe>And then when it actually came to deciding where I was going to go for my education, uh <v Cadet James Coe>West Point again came up and I thought I'd give it a give it a whirl and and try <v Cadet James Coe>to come here. What really it boils down to is that <v Cadet James Coe>the reason we're here is duty, honor and country. <v Cadet James Coe>It is our our ethos. It's what sets us apart from a lot of other people. <v Cadet James Coe>It's more than just what you can learn in books or anything like that. <v Cadet James Coe>It teaches to have moral courage. <v Cadet James Coe>Its duty is doing something for our country. <v Cadet James Coe>Uh being patriotic. I think that's also what what West Point teaches. <v Cadet James Coe>You know, we're number four as far as Rhodes scholars go, but that's not really why <v Cadet James Coe>we're here. And we're not here for athletics and we're not here for discipline. <v Cadet James Coe>The military Individual has to be ready to give <v Cadet James Coe>his life for his country. <v Cadet James Coe>The concept that that West Point embodies is duty, honor, country.

<v Cadet James Coe>We are a little more aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it. <v Cadet James Coe>Uh and for that reason, I think that that's why I stayed at West Point. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>I think that my perceptions of the academy have changed somewhat. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>I think that perhaps before I came, I was- had <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>fallen prey perhaps to a lot of the perceptions that I think a good part of the public <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>feels that uh the academy is a sterile environment or one <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>composed entirely of one type of of individual who uh <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>is is very goal oriented and a high achiever, as <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>it were. Having been here a while, I realize that <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>it wouldn't be possible to take 4000 people uh of any age group <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>out of the public and get uh something other than general sampling. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>You're gonna you get a fair distribution of people across the board. <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>Don't get anyone who you don't get people who are have the same values <v Cadet Ed Ruggero>when they come in here. Um but I can see where that's better

<v Cadet Ed Ruggero>than what I thought of the place. <v Joseph J. Ellis>West Pointers as a group collectively and they, of course, hate you- hate <v Joseph J. Ellis>for anyone to talk about them collectively, since when people tourists come to see them, <v Joseph J. Ellis>they think they're all the same. They're all wearing the same clothes and um they they <v Joseph J. Ellis>want each- they want you to recognize that each of them is a separate individual soul. <v Joseph J. Ellis>And of course they are. But you can talk collectively about West Pointers. <v Joseph J. Ellis>The socialization process that is a West Point education really does mold them into <v Joseph J. Ellis>a common mold. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um and one of the the goals of West Point education is, is to produce <v Joseph J. Ellis>a soldier or a um a professional who will <v Joseph J. Ellis>perform the mission, assigned him and now her more effectively and efficiently <v Joseph J. Ellis>than anyone else. But that the West Pointers function is not <v Joseph J. Ellis>to ask questions about the mission. <v Joseph J. Ellis>They're not there to define what the problem is. <v Joseph J. Ellis>They're there to try to provide an answer to problems which someone else has already

<v Joseph J. Ellis>given them. Now, in the grand scheme of things, this makes a kind of sense <v Joseph J. Ellis>because the distinction between the civilians and the military in this particular country <v Joseph J. Ellis>suggests that the civilian should make policy decisions and the military should implement <v Joseph J. Ellis>those decisions. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um we are, as they would say, the bullet in the gun. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Uh someone else fires us. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um I think that on the one hand, if we get involved in a war again and the soldiers <v Joseph J. Ellis>are sitting around waiting to attack a pillbox, the order comes down, I don't want a um <v Joseph J. Ellis>a lieutenant who starts to speculate on the meaning of of aggression or starts <v Joseph J. Ellis>quoting from Moby Dick. I want somebody who's gonna lead the soldiers towards the <v Joseph J. Ellis>pillbox. The uh the problem with that is that we <v Joseph J. Ellis>have recently become engaged in a war, the Vietnam War, in which the distinction between <v Joseph J. Ellis>policy and implementation is not so clear. <v Joseph J. Ellis>And in fact, soldiers found themselves in a position where they were at least indirectly <v Joseph J. Ellis>making policy.

<v Joseph J. Ellis>Um West Pointers are not very good at that. <v Joseph J. Ellis>In my opinion, there might be individuals who are good at that. <v Joseph J. Ellis>But the West Point education by itself plays that down. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Within the classroom at West Point, you ask what the causes of the French Revolution <v Joseph J. Ellis>are and they think that you can list them. <v Joseph J. Ellis>One, two, three, four. The French Revolution is like an M-16, a weapon you can <v Joseph J. Ellis>take apart and put together again. <v Joseph J. Ellis>They don't wanna ask philosophical questions about it. <v Joseph J. Ellis>They don't wanna become too speculative about it. <v Joseph J. Ellis>In fact, in most cases, feel somewhat uneasy when put into those kind of situations. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um on the other hand, I do think that the world we live in now is one in which military <v Joseph J. Ellis>and civilian segments or spheres are no longer a separable. <v Joseph J. Ellis>And I think that the academy is a place where the kind of thoughtfulness, <v Joseph J. Ellis>the kind of uh deeper thinking, um the kind of non engineer <v Joseph J. Ellis>thinking that is gonna have to go on at the higher echelons in the army <v Joseph J. Ellis>ought to go on more than it does. <v Speaker>[chairs shuffling] [inaudible talking]

<v Michael Silverman>Thank you. Take your seats. <v Michael Silverman>Is there anybody who doesn't have their lab report ready? <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>I think uh we suffered in terms of student interest <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>in the 60s ?you know? following the Vietnam conflict, just <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>as colleges across the country did. <v Michael Silverman>OK. So look at problem number six. <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>It has been argued, and I believe it's correct, that the high school programs suffered a <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>breakdown and this in turn impacted on what happened subsequently in college. <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>If you look back at the 60s and what was happening on college <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>campuses across the country, uh it was literally a disaster area. <v Michael Silverman>?inaudible? OK, thanks. Have a seat. <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>OK. There was a couple of interesting articles in the paper today on uh <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>energy issues. <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>It's very clear to me. I've been teaching cadets for the past decade. <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>Nuclear power has been viewed as. And uh there is a noticeable uh increase <v Col. Lee O. Olvey>and uh commitment and interest in uh things found

<v Col. Lee O. Olvey>in textbooks. <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>Six months in particularly in the uh last three months with the Three Mile Island <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>situation where American people have begun to realize that, hey, we <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>need to rethink this. And this may not be the answer. <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>Where we gonna go? R&D funds have begun to shift. <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>Uh we are spending more now on uh the more soft technology, solar <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>um and other technologies there. You- do you think that that's a valid argument? <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>Do we have to make a choice now? Go in one direction or the other? <v Capt. Robert W. Miller>Steve. <v Steve>We will see some innovations, especially like home solar uh units and uh <v Steve>greater efficiency of the use of energy. Things like that will come into play. <v Steve>But odds are that the combined approach would probably be what happens just because there <v Steve>is political influences on both sides. <v Man 2>Congress isn't gonna triple the defense budget in one year. <v Man 2>We might have the capacity to triple it. Soviets can't possibly keep up with that <v Man 2>tripling. It's irrelevant 'cause we're probably barely gonna increase the defense budget <v Man 2>anyway. <v Capt. Tom Wheelock>That's a stronger case for SALT then. <v Man 2>I agree sir, I think SALT's a good idea.

<v Capt. Tom Wheelock>Any other comments? <v Man 3>The ?Soviets? have also got the same thing because right now they're putting more of <v Man 3>their GDP into military uh development than we are really. <v Man 4>The Soviet Union they might have a increased consumer demand, but it's ?inaudible?. <v Man 4>It's not gonna get to the point where it's gonna affect government decisions on how they <v Man 4>allocate their money. So it's not really about the statement right there at all. <v Man 2>Hmm. It's more whether we had the capability to outrace 'em, our government's not gonna <v Man 2>let us do it. <v Capt. Tom Wheelock>Any other comments on uh on the agreement? <v Man 4>I think it's a mistake. <v Capt. Tom Wheelock>You think it's a mistake? <v Man 4>No guarantee that the Soviets' gonna hold back. <v Man 4>?inaudible? Put ourselves in a pretty precarious position, just- <v Capt. Tom Wheelock>Eh hold back. You mean that they- they'd be inclined to cheat? <v Man 4>Yes sir I think so. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>I think one thing that I do see is uh an increase uh <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>an increased individualism. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>And uh that, I think, is to be welcomed. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>Uh it does create a little more of a of a challenge uh in <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>uh uh operating a uh an institution uh which really

<v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>is aimed at a certain set of objectives. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>Those objectives come from the role that our officers have to perform in the army. <v Robert Moore>I think the Academy could do a much better job than it's doing in being <v Robert Moore>honest with itself about a dual mission and the kind of <v Robert Moore>problems and dilemmas that are created by that dual mission. <v Robert Moore>Instead, senior officials have historically tended to talk around <v Robert Moore>what is really at issue, which is, on the one hand, people who are being asked to <v Robert Moore>participate in an engineering education with some liberal arts <v Robert Moore>influence and at the same time, go through, particularly in the summers, an <v Robert Moore>intensive military indoctrination and training process. <v Robert Moore>The sole goal of which is to make them servants of the state and the ultimate <v Robert Moore>mission of closing with and destroying an enemy, whoever that enemy is. <v Robert Moore>And that enemy is not an enemy you identify, but it's an enemy the state identifies <v Robert Moore>for you.

<v Michael Silverman>Section dismissed. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>Well, there are two aspects here. <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>On the one hand, our young people must have a sound undergraduate <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>education. Along with that, they have to understand the military <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>obligation. And that can very, very certainly require <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>that they lead units uh where people kill and get killed, <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>uh that ultimately uh if your nation and if your people are going to remain <v Lt. General A. Goodpaster>free, they've got to be willing to fight for that freedom. <v Man 5>[chanting] He was just a ?inaudible? and he surely shook with pride. <v Man 5>Taking is. <v Man 5>He ?inaudible? equipment and made sure his back was tied. <v Man 5>He jumped into the icy blast ?inaudible? and he ain't gonna jump no more. [inaudible singing] [music plays] <v Robert Moore>Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, the academy has had tremendous

<v Robert Moore>cultural pressures brought on it, primarily because it's an American <v Robert Moore>institution and America in the last two decades has been very confused. <v Robert Moore>We as a nation have been very confused about what our even even our basic priorities <v Robert Moore>are and how we're gonna go about meeting them. <v Robert Moore>And it's very much of a strain on people who are in a profession <v Robert Moore>which profession calls upon them to be servants of the state, if the state <v Robert Moore>doesn't know, even in a general way, what its basic priorities <v Robert Moore>are, or if it calls upon them to be engaged in a war, and the <v Robert Moore>mission that they are given in that war is not clear as in Vietnam, <v Robert Moore>it so frequently was not clear. [drumming] [cheering] <v Joseph J. Ellis>I <v Joseph J. Ellis>think that the academy is a kind of inkblot test or Rorschach

<v Joseph J. Ellis>test for American public opinion. <v Joseph J. Ellis>And in times in which uh the military is um <v Joseph J. Ellis>looked upon with some degree of skepticism or where established institutions are under <v Joseph J. Ellis>assault or criticism like the 1930s, the 1960s, the academy <v Joseph J. Ellis>stock tends to go down. In times when things are reasonably <v Joseph J. Ellis>prosperous and the uh values of this country look to be rather good, the <v Joseph J. Ellis>academy stock is very high. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Uh I think that in the late 70s and into the 80s, I would predict the <v Joseph J. Ellis>academy's reputation will will go up. <v Joseph J. Ellis>[distant cheering] <v Col. Roy K Flint>On uh March 16, 1802, President Thomas <v Col. Roy K Flint>Jefferson signed a bill that formally established the <v Col. Roy K Flint>United States Military Academy. <v Col. Roy K Flint>He was also then responsible for the means by which cadets were brought

<v Col. Roy K Flint>here. And this is the process wherein congressmen, <v Col. Roy K Flint>representatives and senators could send young men to the military academy <v Col. Roy K Flint>as cadets. It was also obviously a form of patronage, <v Col. Roy K Flint>but it had the effect of distributing the population of cadets in approximation <v Col. Roy K Flint>of the population of the United States. <v Woman 1>It all seems so monumental. We really didn't think that he would be accepted. <v Woman 1>[laughs] <v Man 6>We had enough connections. I thought it took more connections, political or whatever <v Man 6>uh where actually, as we said, he did it all on his own, uh <v Man 6>strictly from applying. <v Man 6>And I didn't think he'd have a chance. <v Man 6>I was extremely proud. <v Cadet Curt Doescher>Well when I was younger, we used to always take, you know, trips, picnics and stuff <v Cadet Curt Doescher>up to West Point. And you look at the cadets and you see <v Cadet Curt Doescher>like they command authority or, you know, it's just some kind uh- something about

<v Cadet Curt Doescher>'em, you know, a mystique or something. They get respect from the outside by people <v Cadet Curt Doescher>on the outside. You say, you know, wow, someday I would like to be like that. <v Cadet Curt Doescher>And um, you know, you live in this country and I can't <v Cadet Curt Doescher>think of what it would be like to live somewhere else, like you don't have the things <v Cadet Curt Doescher>that we have. You don't have the freedoms that we have and you take it for granted. <v Cadet Curt Doescher>You seem to take it for granted. And, you know, you don't realize it what a great <v Cadet Curt Doescher>country, what a great life this is. <v Woman 1>What I'm looking forward to is dropping you off at 7:30 in the morning on July 2nd <v Woman 1>and then at 5 o'clock that night to see all of these young <v Woman 1>men march along and some kind of ?formation?- <v Man 6>?inaudible? <v Woman 1>-transformation. <v Announcer>Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the United States Military Academy. <v Announcer>It's an honor to have this opportunity to talk with you, the beginning of this reception <v Announcer>day for the West Point class of 1983.

<v Announcer>Today is both the culmination and the beginning, the culmination of an <v Announcer>intensive selection process and the beginning of the new and <v Announcer>unparallel opportunities. <v Announcer>At the same time, today represents a continuation of the very special tradition of <v Announcer>service. Traditions of duty, <v Announcer>honor, country. <v Announcer>When I was in 9th or 10th grade, an uncle, you know, he said, <v Announcer>now you're smart enough to go to West Point. And I I said, forget it I'm not going to <v Announcer>West but I- you know, I guess I looked into it and somehow <v Announcer>I said that that was for me, but I wasn't really pushed by my family. <v Announcer>You know it was the decision was really on my own. <v Announcer>A lot of my friends think I'm crazy. <v Announcer>You know, everybody thinks of going into business or becoming a doctor or a lawyer or <v Announcer>whatever. This is this is something that's this is a worthwhile <v Announcer>profession, too. This is something that has to be done.

<v Announcer>And I guess you might say that it takes a special kind of person to do it. <v Announcer>And whether or not I'm that kind of person, I'll find out in the next <v Announcer>number of years. [drumming] <v Cadet Curt Doescher>My father was showing me all the stuff of his old army days <v Cadet Curt Doescher>?inaudible? and all that stuff. I said I'll never get that, but I guess ?inaudible?. <v Announcer 2>Raise your right hands and repeat after me.

<v Announcer 2>I and state your full name [crowd repeating] do <v Announcer 2>solemnly swear [repeating] that I will support <v Announcer 2>the Constitution of the United States <v Announcer 2>[repeating] and bear true allegiance to the national government [repeating]. <v Announcer 2>That I will maintain and defend the sovereignty of the United States [repeating] <v Announcer 2>paramount <v Announcer 2>to any and all allegiance [repeating] <v Announcer 2>sovereignty or fealty I may owe to any state <v Announcer 2>or country whatsoever [repeating]. [water lapping] <v Col. Roy K Flint>Jefferson's dream of creating a body of engineers

<v Col. Roy K Flint>was really fulfilled and largely through the efforts of Silvanus Thayer, who is now <v Col. Roy K Flint>known as the father of the military academy. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Thayer became the superintendent of the military academy in uh <v Col. Roy K Flint>1817. He was very much impressed by the French educational system. <v Col. Roy K Flint>He was impressed by Napoleon. He was uh impressed with the French army. <v Col. Roy K Flint>And uh Thayer brought great reform. <v Col. Roy K Flint>And in fact, established the first respectable, substantial engineering <v Col. Roy K Flint>school in the United States. <v Col. Roy K Flint>[singing] <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>My name is Jeff Gunzenhauser. I come from uh Lancaster, Pennsylvania. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>Uh it's a farming community, south central Pennsylvania. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>Um I don't have any military experience in my background neither my father nor my mother <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>nor really any of my relations are from the military. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>I came to West Point mainly because I thought the discipline

<v Jeff Gunzenhauser>was something that I think every young man should experience. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>That age, when I was 18, I felt that uh that <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>there are certain trends going on in our country right now. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>And I think there's a very uh strong tendency for <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>liberalization, getting away from discipline and that sort of thing. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>I felt at that time that discipline was something that I needed. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>There are four answers that that new cadets learn, one of the very first <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>day, ?probably? very first thing they learn, they learn 4 answers to every situation, <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>every question. Yes, sir. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>No, sir. No excuse, sir. And sir, I do not understand. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>And whenever they're asked a question, those are the only responses they're supposed to <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>answer. And you learn- well, it took me a long time to learn it, but <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>I've finally learned that uh yes, sir. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>No, sir. Pretty- you know you can use them to most most questions. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>But when you do something wrong and they ask you, why did you do it?

<v Cadet Robin Fennessy>You you answer no excuse, sir. And that's the hardest one right there. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>Because um if you really think about usually whatever happened <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>was uh there really was no excuse for it. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>You b- prioritized your time wrong, um you you polished your boots instead <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>of uh ya know shine your belt buckle or some silly thing. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>And uh as a commander, you make decisions all the time and you have to stand <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>by 'em. There's no one else responsible. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>Um if you're told, take that hill and you don't take it, you know, <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>there is no reason why it wasn't taken. I mean, you can say, well, you know, I didn't <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>have enough ammunition. I did- hey, situation is it wasn't taken. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>It makes you think about the weight of your decisions. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>You don't make them lightly and uh you stand behind 'em when you make 'em. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>And it's really a very interesting phenomena in terms of <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>uh other schools, because it is the cadets that really pass all the information <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>uh to all the cadets. They take care of their own operations.

<v Jeff Gunzenhauser>They uh- they enforce their own rules. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>They police themselves. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>Basically, they take care of of everything. <v Cadet Holly Getz>A company can't run without the police class because that's really who they do, <v Cadet Holly Getz>all the little chores that the company runs on. <v Cadet Holly Getz>And if there weren't any plebes who would the upper class lead? <v Cadet Holly Getz>[laughs] [announcer speaking] So we were just objects <v Cadet Holly Getz>I guess this year. We didn't really have an identity and we couldn't be called by our <v Cadet Holly Getz>first names. So when we get recognized, everyone's all <v Cadet Holly Getz>a sudden a friend. <v Cadet Holly Getz>[inaudible chatting] And we find out that the people that were that were big hazers <v Cadet Holly Getz>during the year, really they're really normal people [laughs] and they don't- they don't <v Cadet Holly Getz>yell and scream like that normally. [cheering] <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>I wanna be an Army officer, and if I'd wanted to be a a lawyer, I'd go

<v Cadet Robin Fennessy>to Harvard. If I wanted to be uh an engineer I'd go to M.I.T. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>But if I wanna be a soldier, go to West Point, 'cause that's where they train you to <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>be a soldier. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>I've chosen to go into the medical corps and I I feel very lucky to be able <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>to do this. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>For me, it creates some difficulty. Our primary mission here is not to train medical <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>corps officers, doctors, and yet I feel that I have have the academic <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>ability and I have the motivation to be an officer for 20 years or 25 <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>years and serve as a medical corps officer, a doctor. <v Jeff Gunzenhauser>[yelling] [announcer speaking] <v Cadet Holly Getz>[continued shouting] Right now, I'm from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. <v Cadet Holly Getz>My father's the operations officer for the 18th Airborne Corps down there, and <v Cadet Holly Getz>he graduated '59 in what they call the old

<v Cadet Holly Getz>corps [laughs]. He when he was here it was a lot harder. <v Cadet Holly Getz>Their first year they couldn't go home for Christmas, and there were a lot more <v Cadet Holly Getz>restrictions. They couldn't have their cars until like halfway through their senior year <v Cadet Holly Getz>and now the- the cadets get 'em when they're juniors. <v Cadet Holly Getz>I remember last summer when the first time we were loud- allowed to come <v Cadet Holly Getz>home, it was like three weeks into ?these? <v Cadet Holly Getz>barracks and things have changed a lot but he knew what I was going through and he <v Cadet Holly Getz>knew it was hard. And I think he was sort of proud that I didn't give <v Cadet Holly Getz>up. And I kept going. <v Announcer 3>Kick him hard, he don't mind. Kick 'em hard, he likes it. <v Cadet Holly Getz>It's what's basically the hardest is um running around in the woods with all the <v Cadet Holly Getz>equipment on. That's uncomfortable for everyone, not just the women. <v Cadet Holly Getz>The men have trouble with that, too. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>They- I think they worked on the assumption that we'll put the women through it <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>and we'll see how they do. And if they don't do as well, then we'll adjust the <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>standards for the women, but um we'll keep the men's standards same.

<v Cadet Robin Fennessy>And that way uh we'll only make changes, physiological difference changes. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>So everything that we did and we did the same as the guys did and uh <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>those things that we failed, though we didn't do as well and they would change it, but uh <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>they the standards are a lot higher for both men and the women than they thought it was <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>going to be. <v Cadet Holly Getz>They couldn't change everything for the women. <v Cadet Holly Getz>So the uniforms look pretty much the same. <v Cadet Holly Getz>But so they just modified them and they really don't look [laughs] good on women <v Cadet Holly Getz>at all. [shooting] <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>The first year it was a ?hot house? it's like a a totally created environment. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>They ?bring in? 1400 cadets every year <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>and they give 'em a set of regulations to live by, a whole set of rules live by, and <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>they they isolate us here pretty much. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>We don't- we aren't allowed leave all that often um- the first semester you're <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>not allowed to have radios.

<v Cadet Robin Fennessy>You don't watch television. You um get The New York Times and they bring <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>in a couple of magazines. But uh you're really out of touch with what's really happening <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>outside the walls. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>Um you live, breathe, eat, survive West Point regulations, <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>this system. And it's totally a created environment. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>They teach us how to be cadets. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>Now, I don't know whether or not they teach us how to be officers. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>That's the the mission. That's what they're trying to do. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>I imagine they they do pretty well since they've made a lot of good officers out of this <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>place. But how am I gonna be able to relate to a soldier in my <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>unit who comes in and can't make ends meet you know financially or there's <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>um problems of homosexuality and drugs and race and all these things that they <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>they try to make it relevant to the real world but then we- in order to teach us things, <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>I guess they have a hot house in order to create beautiful flowers. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>Well, they create a West Point, they get great officers and and maybe it works <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>and maybe it doesn't. I don't know. But um it's it's really it's a whole

<v Cadet Robin Fennessy>different world. It really is. You'd have to live it to understand it because <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>it's a whole different world. It's just not like anything out there. <v Cadet Robin Fennessy>[singing] [music playing] [clapping] <v Col. Roy K Flint>In the early years of the military academy, particularly from the time that Thayer was

<v Col. Roy K Flint>superintendent up to about the Civil War, 9 ?inaudible? <v Col. Roy K Flint>military academy was a preeminent engineering <v Col. Roy K Flint>school. It was the first engineering school in the country. <v Col. Roy K Flint>And for that first period of its existence, <v Col. Roy K Flint>it was at the front edge of educational technique. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Its graduates were well known. They were successful. <v Col. Roy K Flint>They were engineers. <v Col. Roy K Flint>They built the railroads and the canals and the roads of this country in the first years <v Col. Roy K Flint>of the 19th century, and then the civil war came along <v Col. Roy K Flint>and the graduates of the military academy experienced great success. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Some 60 battles fought during the Civil War, 55 <v Col. Roy K Flint>were commanded on both sides by military academy graduates. <v Col. Roy K Flint>And then the other 5 battles ?or so? a graduate commanded one side or the other. <v Col. Roy K Flint>So so there's no question West Point was uh very uh clearly a part <v Col. Roy K Flint>of not only the military scene for which it's most famous, but it was a

<v Col. Roy K Flint>very progressive educational institution, too. <v Col. Roy K Flint>But it seems that in the postwar period, there was a tendency <v Col. Roy K Flint>to be satisfied with the traditional methods. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Now, that wouldn't have been so bad because those traditional methods were still <v Col. Roy K Flint>effective. <v Col. Roy K Flint>But the military academy as an engineering school, was overtaken <v Col. Roy K Flint>and surpassed by other engineering schools in the country. <v Col. Roy K Flint>So that as uh an educational institution, it began to appear <v Col. Roy K Flint>almost backwards, so that at the end of World War I, <v Col. Roy K Flint>there was a renewal of the criticism of West Point that had begun <v Col. Roy K Flint>in the early years, that it was a a school that generated <v Col. Roy K Flint>itself through nepotism. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Uh it was uh an elite that they didn't understand the people <v Col. Roy K Flint>in this vastly expanded 4 million man army.

<v Col. Roy K Flint>And MacArthur was sent to the military academy to be the superintendent <v Col. Roy K Flint>to redirect without sacrificing any of the old virtues, <v Col. Roy K Flint>the uh military academy along new and more progressive lines. <v Col. Roy K Flint>[music continues] <v Henry S. Commager>We have never really had a national enemy except the Indian <v Henry S. Commager>who was the most fortunate of all national enemies for our purposes, because there <v Henry S. Commager>was a built in guarantee that the whites would win. <v Henry S. Commager>The Indians provided something of the same psychological advantage <v Henry S. Commager>for nationalism and for unity uh that um national enemies did <v Henry S. Commager>abroad. And what all this meant was <v Henry S. Commager>that the sou- [stuttering] it was at the [stuttering] the United States alone of <v Henry S. Commager>major nations developed not only without a military, but without

<v Henry S. Commager>a military psychology. And that at no time has there been <v Henry S. Commager>a formal or overt challenge to the principle of <v Henry S. Commager>military subordination. <v General Maxwell Taylor>I I I don't know of any institution in the country more dedicated <v General Maxwell Taylor>to civilian leadership and accepts it more willingly than the armed forces <v General Maxwell Taylor>as an institution. <v General Maxwell Taylor>We know that we view the present, not only the chief executive, but in a special role <v General Maxwell Taylor>?toward? us he is the commander in chief in civilian clothes, but he- ?all? <v General Maxwell Taylor>authority down to the the last corporal draws his authority <v General Maxwell Taylor>from the commander the president as commander in chief. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Hence, we are loyal to him because we know that loyalty is one one of those attributes or <v General Maxwell Taylor>character that must be must be uh <v General Maxwell Taylor>uh within the within the the nature of the <v General Maxwell Taylor>of the professional officer. <v General Maxwell Taylor>And hence the question of obedience is essential. <v General Maxwell Taylor>That doesn't mean the blind obedience, you could be very intelligently critical of many

<v General Maxwell Taylor>things that take place in the uh soldier as Napoleon always said, the good soldier, <v General Maxwell Taylor>the ?inaudible?, the grumbler. <v General Maxwell Taylor>The grumbler. Yes, but the grumbler also obeyed. <v Henry S. Commager>There were, to be sure, two occasions in our history when <v Henry S. Commager>uh uh generals got out of hand and had to be removed. <v Henry S. Commager>General McClellan got out of hand, thought he could conduct his own <v Henry S. Commager>uh war in his own way, and Lincoln removed him and General <v Henry S. Commager>MacArthur got out of hand and Truman removed him. <v General Maxwell Taylor>When President Truman relieved General MacArthur uh from his command in in <v General Maxwell Taylor>the Far East, uh many of my civilian friends have been surprised <v General Maxwell Taylor>to hear me say that I knew of no senior officer who knew all the facts, who did not <v General Maxwell Taylor>support the present. <v General Maxwell Taylor>The obligation of obedience is very clear. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Now, in case you are sure that the your superior, whether military or civilian, <v General Maxwell Taylor>is wrong and you are right, then you have two problems. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Either to tell yourself, oh maybe I don't know all the facts that that man has.

<v General Maxwell Taylor>I could be wrong and proceeded to execute the ?inaudible?. <v General Maxwell Taylor>Or secondly, you can resign. Turn in your suit as we say. <v General Maxwell Taylor>H- then go out and hire a hall and tell the world why you did it. <v General Maxwell Taylor>But certainly the any suggestion that an officer ever justified <v General Maxwell Taylor>in uniform, publicly and intentionally criticizing his superior, violates <v General Maxwell Taylor>that ethic that I grew up with and all my contemporaries as well. <v Henry S. Commager>What has developed to something most extraordinary in uh modern times, something <v Henry S. Commager>unprecedented in our own history. <v Henry S. Commager>And without clear precedents in other Western nations, <v Henry S. Commager>that is the enlargement and an the the <v Henry S. Commager>insinuation into our society and our economy of what <v Henry S. Commager>Eisenhower called the military industrial complex. <v Henry S. Commager>It was, of course, President ?Moss? who y- wrote that uh speech, but <v Henry S. Commager>we associate it with Eisenhower's farewell address.

<v Henry S. Commager>It is, of course, much more than that. <v Henry S. Commager>The reas- if it were merely military industrial, it would not be so formidable. <v Henry S. Commager>It is, of course, a military industrial, labor, uh <v Henry S. Commager>banking, uh university, uh research, scientific complex, and <v Henry S. Commager>perhaps even more than that. <v Henry S. Commager>Almost all the major institutions of American life are now involved. <v Henry S. Commager>Not so much in war as in a creating a security state whose <v Henry S. Commager>purpose is to avoid war to be sure, but uh whose character involves <v Henry S. Commager>us in just the kind of uh uh <v Henry S. Commager>concentration on defense and concentration on the military that we successfully avoided <v Henry S. Commager>uh for a century and a century and three quarters. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>In the international arena, the purpose of the military is to prevent <v General W.C. Westmoreland>war, to deter war by virtue of the fact that we have an army <v General W.C. Westmoreland>that is strong enough for a military force, that is strong enough to convince a would <v General W.C. Westmoreland>be enemy that he dare not attack us.

<v General W.C. Westmoreland>And our democracy won't work unless we adhere to a very <v General W.C. Westmoreland>fundamental principle that we inherited from the British and they inherited from Roman <v General W.C. Westmoreland>law. For every right there's a duty. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>I know in the last few years we have put inordinate emphasis on rights <v General W.C. Westmoreland>and in the process we've neglected the duties of citizenship. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>This is a very fundamental weakness in our society today. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>And from that weakness, you can trace a lot of problems that we face today. <v Henry S. Commager>The psychology of the defense state at the security state has now <v Henry S. Commager>conquered American uh statesmen and uh <v Henry S. Commager>American scientists and perhaps American public opinion. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>I think uh by virtue of our default in Vietnam, we've lost an awful lot of credibility. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>Our prestige around the world is at an all time low. <v Henry S. Commager>It is a sobering thought that between 40 and 50 percent of all scientific research <v Henry S. Commager>in America is now directed to the military or to subjects connected with the military.

<v General W.C. Westmoreland>One of the developments that resulted from the Vietnam experience <v General W.C. Westmoreland>was uh this continuation of conscription, selective service. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>And as a result of this, the manpower situation and the military forces <v General W.C. Westmoreland>fall short of that, which, in my opinion, is needed. <v General W.C. Westmoreland>[explosion] [music playing] <v Joseph J. Ellis>There are things about it and there are times when I'm there which <v Joseph J. Ellis>um make me think this is the greatest institution in the world. <v Joseph J. Ellis>I taught there for three years and was extremely critical of a lot of things that went <v Joseph J. Ellis>on, but a friend had a private copy of uh the Long Gray Line,

<v Joseph J. Ellis>the movie starring Tyrone Power. And we all sat around my wife and I sat around watching <v Joseph J. Ellis>it. When it was over, we were crying. [cheering] It has a <v Joseph J. Ellis>a ability to pull your own emotions out of you and to pull you <v Joseph J. Ellis>into it. <v Joseph J. Ellis>And yet at other times it has the uh exact opposite impact <v Joseph J. Ellis>on me. I really worry about the place and I worry about what it represents <v Joseph J. Ellis>and the values it represents. I worry about the militarization of American society. <v Joseph J. Ellis>I worried- worry about the kind of thoughtlessness of some of the graduates. <v Joseph J. Ellis>Um both those things coexist. I wish that the world was a little more logical than that, <v Joseph J. Ellis>and I wish that I was a little bit more capable of being consistent. <v Joseph J. Ellis>But um if Emmerson is right that a foolish consistency <v Joseph J. Ellis>is the ?hobgoblin? of little minds, then I'm not at least a little mind. <v Joseph J. Ellis>[bugs chirping] <v Col. Roy K Flint>[inaudible chatting] Well,

<v Col. Roy K Flint>I think that in spite of the controversy that surrounded the Vietnam War and the <v Col. Roy K Flint>the feelings that people seem to have towards the army professionals, <v Col. Roy K Flint>there's one thing that you that you can say and that in spite of attitudes <v Col. Roy K Flint>and dissent and and c- and criticism, the West Point classes <v Col. Roy K Flint>marched off again, as they have in previous wars, to fight <v Col. Roy K Flint>to do what their what their nation asked them to do. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Whether or not what they did was popular really is <v Col. Roy K Flint>not the issue here. <v Col. Roy K Flint>What is the issue is, as far as the military academy is concerned, is that <v Col. Roy K Flint>is that its graduates recognize that its that its uh <v Col. Roy K Flint>priorities uh lay with what General MacArthur referred to in his famous

<v Col. Roy K Flint>speech. And and it and that which is the motto of the military academy. <v Col. Roy K Flint>Duty, honor and country. <v Col. Roy K Flint>And so they once again answered the call as they will <v Col. Roy K Flint>in the future, if ever called upon, fight again. <v Col. Roy K Flint>[music plays]