Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

On the question of progress/promotion in an Army career, this is my answer:

1- You do not have to think about this because The Almighty is taking care of you and will provide all you ever need.

2- You do not have to think about this because your native ability in all fields and especially in the crucial one of leadership enthusiastically acknowledged by others is so high that you will make your own way well forward on merit alone, which is as it should be in any case.

3- You will stand on your record and this will so vigorously recommend you — together with The Almighty’s all-seeing Providence — and at the right moments, which none of us can know they occur, that for this reason, too, you need give promotion not any thought.

In other words, concentrate on enjoying what you are doing and the job in front of you, as you do now. Do what is at hand and to let the future be what it is. The relish of life is in the present. Have fun doing your work now, whatever it is. This is all the preparation for the future that you ever need to do. You will have a happy life iin the Army. Let The Almighty arrange the details from the work you accomplish.

Stonewall Jackson — who walked the very grounds you do — wrote in his diary while a Cadet: “Duty is ours. Consequences are God’s.” This is the glorious truth, the source of comfort. Have faith in God, do your best always and you will never have cause to worry.

When you marry, marry a young lady who understands this great principle and is enthusiastic to live by it. Your mother never engaged in low activities in order to advance our life. She knew that such would only achieve the opposite of its intent. So pick your wife carefully with this especially in mind. And for yourself, merely enjoy your work and relish the duties that are to hand.  That is all at any time of your life you ever need for the devotion of time or energy.

Probably you have heard this, but in case you have not, it would help to be aware that the time after Christmas — when they’re back at the Point — is said to be the worst time they have for depression. You can readily see why. The faculty and staff of the Academy are aware of this phenomenon and apparently keep the Cadets at only military work during this period — before classes restart — to keep them occupied and less able to dwell on self-pity.

The other difficult time for them will be just before Recognition Day, which will be just before Plebe-Parent Weekend. Storm is worst before the sun, etc. After they are recognized — get their names back — it’s a whole different world, as you’ve no doubt heard. The first time our son called — a week into Beast — his only thought was of making it through to Recognition Day.

The program for all the Cadets at this point is to create for them maximum misery, stress, pain and depression. The reason for it is see if they can withstand something approximating battle conditions — which are far worse than anything they endure now — and — and this is the important thing — maintain their presence of mind and not go into quitting mode. If the Officers quit, the Soldiers under their command die without reason. So they have to make sure there are no quitters and that horrible circumstances cannot deflect or destabilize the Officers from calm decision-making in just those horrible circumstances. This goal is what separates WP from a college. College it is not. It is a military academy, preparing Officers for battle. The Cadets must themselves know that they can take “all hell breaking loose” and maintain composure so as to be able to make sound decisions. That battle situation governs the program at West Point.

It is a calling that only some of us have. I certainly do not. I am called as a theologian, a teacher. Our elder son is not called as a Soldier. The nation has always recognized this phenomenon — albeit imperfectly — by providing the category of conscientious objector and giving exemptions to divinity students. But some do have the calling of Soldier and specifically of Officer and about these the academy is designed to be certain, that they actually have the calling and the qualities of character which are prerequisite to proper implementation of the role.

It is rough. It is very rough. It is not always fair and can get cruel, which is always improper. Apparently [Name’s] roommate has been getting the latter.

If I were in a position to make a suggestion it would be this: that you encourage [Name] to persevere for two years and then on the first day of class the third year she can decide to change schools but without a cloud over her head. She will be credited with three years of college by the school to which she transfers and will not owe the government for her two years at WP. This is in preference to separating now, which would follow her as a cloud for the rest of her life.

In any case, after Recognition Day she will feel much better and I would expect will even start to feel quite proud of herself and pleased with her position vis-a-vis her high school chums. She will know she has been where they cannot go and has carried through with experiences they will not have and is both toughened and softened to express the range of strength and compassion that is the nature of us all. She will feel very good about herself.

If you feel it is appropriate you are welcome to share this encouragement with her. I know how she feels. I have been there as a theologian, even without military training. She will persevere and find herself grand and strong all along but now being aware of the fact.

Thanks for the forward from [Name]. This is the sort of mail that weighs a parent’s and a friend’s heart. I do not have to tell YOU that ! My goodness !!!

I am searching for a way to assuage pain and encourage comfort and am not sure the following will do that but offer it in the hope that it will.

[Name] appears to looking at WP as the college she went to instead of Miami or Harvard or Princeton, etc, where her pals went. I think this is the root of her unhappiness. Her pals went to college. [Name] went to military school. They went to prepare for a professional career and/or to marry or to party. [Name] went to a school whose mission is to train battle leaders, to learn how to kill without being killed and to support those who do.

[Name] appears to think or at least to hope that she went to a college. She is not alone in that expectation. In the Beast Barracks video you probably noticed that of all the candidates interviewed at the top of the video, only one or two were aware that they were entering a military school. Most thought they were coming to get a fine education — that is, coming to a unique college with perhaps a strange way of doing some things but still a college to prepare them for their personal professional careers.

Not so. The first thing WP teaches cadets is to sublimate the ego. And then they are taught this over and over until they are so sick of it that they actually do sublimate the ego and thus become Soldiers or kick out and return to civilian life.

In civilian life people are allowed wide latitude for ego. Religiously they should not be, but practically they are. Ego is as destructive in civil life as it is in military life, but we tolerate it more in civil life than in military life. In military life ego is positively dangerous. Under shot and shell it is unacceptable for anyone to suggest that a committee be organized to discuss whether the personal priorities of subordinates are going to be fulfilled by their accomplishing the orders that have just been received. The orders have to be obeyed fully and completely and willingly on the instant. This is a requirement of battle and battle-readiness is the standard at which the WP curriculum aims. It can do no other.

College has a different aim.

So the question is whether [Name] feels called to be a Soldier. If so, she is in the right place and must sublimate her ego and learn to relish the training. If not, she is in the wrong place and should resign. The issue is not likes and dislikes or happiness and unhappiness. The issue is what is her calling. If she makes her decision on this issue — and accurately — she will be happy the rest of her life. If she makes her decision on the basis of happiness or unhappiness, she will disrespect herself the rest of her life and will always have the horrible question, “What if?” gnawing at her soul.

Does she have a Soldier’s calling? That is the question. If yes, she stays. If no, she quits.

That is my suggestion that I hope assuages pain by shedding awareness. My heart is as hurt and heavy with this as is yours. I feel as you do.

A lady from AOL spammed WP with this message, and my psych P asked us to come up with an idea for a educated reply (so far, unfortunately, many plebes have sent messages which would only reinforce her opinion). I was wondering if you had any quick thoughts on the matter, since it is a question not only now but one I am sure to run into later.

The service academies should be combined into a single academy, with a reduced enrollment. Business calls it “downsizing”. Our taxes are wasted in perpetuating what was a system that was designed in another era and that is immobilized by tradition. The academies each have a long history of providing officers etc etc — but today we need the money to go toward solving huge national problems from crime to AIDS. Your “free” education is very costly to us taxpayers. It is not free! Half of you who stood and sang your school song in Philadelphia will leave the service as soon as you can to use your West Point degree as a ticket to law school. MBA programs etc.  You will decide that life in the military is “just not for you”. Well a growing number of us “civilians” have had enough. We are learning the numbers too — that a surprisingly large percentage of academy enrollment is in the form of sons and daughters of graduates and officers — academies are the breeding grounds for an ancestral [sic] officer corps.

GO ARMY GO NAVY GO AIR FORCE into a single academy.!

Obviously, she is not completely an asinine moron as many of the 4th class have written to her imply. Many of their messages are extremely shallow, and I thought we could do a lot better representing the Academy. Some of the points are partially correct, supported by our stats that only 17% of graduates remain in the Army after 5 years. We’ve thought up several lines of replies so far.

Any thoughts?

Yes, the basis of the reply is the lady’s inaccurate assumption that the military — and she would probably include all other human activity — is a business. This is the fundamental error of her ideas and what makes her hysterical, and she is that.

There are four basic callings of life and only one of them is pointed at making a profit in terms of money, namely the calling of industry and business. It is the bane of the era that many business people want to assert that all human life is or should be a business. Bill Gates, for example, intends to supplant governments with MS. He says, “As far as we are concerned, governments are just another business.” What he means is, buyable — by himself. His and this lady’s attitude towards government could not be more petulant and ultimately hysterical because, in the nature of the thing, their attitude can never be fulfilled.

The four immutable and permanent callings of life are:

1- Teaching
2- Governing
3- Producing
4- Laboring

Each of these callings is equally important and the whole system of society requires the efficient operation of each calling. If one calling tries to supplant others or claim it is dominant, that is a cancer and will kill society if allowed to grow. DOJ and other branches of government here and in Europe are currently in process of giving MS the choice of keeping within its appropriate limits or being treated as a cancer — i.e., eliminated. Of course, market forces in the form of (1) MS inoperability and (2) Java pan-operability will also take care of MS’s pretense. But the role of government in controlling the arrogance of business is permanent and necessary. T.R. Roosevelt, who had Douglas MacArthur for a White House Aide, set the standards and enforced them, most appropriately.

Essentially this lady is giving example A of the arrogance of business, the assertion that business is the supreme activity of humanity and the model for all to live by. This is a bumptious lie and a dangerous one.

If this were true, there would be no schools, no government and all would be slaves of business owners.

Most of the actual activity of human society is non-profit. It must be.

So the approach I would recommend to the lady is to deny her premise and tell her that her proposals, being based on an improper and therefore unrealisitc premise (all is business, for profit), cannot be taken seriously. One can go farther and say that her proposals amount to a threat to national security from a person who is ignorant and therefore hysterical.

Her real goal is to put the money currently used to conduct government activities into her own and her cronies’ pockets. She wants to usurp government activity in order to acquire government money for private purposes. Not capitalism but crony capitalism — such as practiced in Nazi Germany — is her vision.  This sort of theft is proposed rather regularly, especially during times when people either (1) are sated with income and cannot think of anything except getting more or (2) are experiencing decline of income and so cast about for new sources thereof.  And since government has the power to tax, let’s tax everyone else to fill our pockets … so goes the inner reasoning of these individuals.

Reason 2 is the one actually motivating this lady, I suspect. Everything looks good on Wall Street at the moment, but as the Fed Chair has been warning, all is far from well. And in fact all know it in their bones. Actually, this Christmas is going to break the economy — and MS, too, incidentally. And this lady is speaking for many who are poised to lose and know it and are casting about for lifeboats against the day they can feel. Being selfish, the only lifeboat they can think of is money, which is life’s worst lifeboat because it is least reliable. The only lifeboat there is is proper living. Adherence to the universal moral base line is what brings us through today, tomorrow and the next day until time ends. Good conduct, arising from good character, is the only lifeboat available to mankind.

The armed forces are not a business in the sense that they are not pointed at making a pecuniary profit. They are used to support economic activity, to protect the nation’s businesses, and this is appropriate. But the armed forces are not themselves businesses because they are not aimed at turning financial profits. They never can be so aimed. If they were, they would dominate everyone else, including businesses, because they have the firepower to enforce their will. We would be a Haiti, etc.

So first we establish the need for government and for the military as the core of government, protecting all.  And all not for profit. Then we say that we need the several service academies because there are unique fields of activity in which the military must perform when called to. These fields require allocation of resource and special training. This is such a clear fact once the necessity of government and therefore military is established that I won’t spend time arguing it.

Historically, every time we are not fighting a war business people say they want to lower the military budget and put the money in their own pockets. MacArthur had to go to the mat with Roosevelt over this. So have other CSAs and CNOs. It is an old story that gets hashed out, appropriately, in the political arena. However, as MacArthur pointed out when he was CSA and facing Roosevelt’s Budget Office on this matter, the heart of the military is the officer corps because these are the people who can train a fighting force when the need arises. At all costs, the officer corps must be maintained, MacArthur argued, and for all services.

Coordination of the services is necessary and appropriate, especially as Goldwater finally set it straight, giving the Chairman JCS deciding vote so there is unified command at the top. But the training of the services is for unique fields of activity and therefore must be uniquely delivered.

The lady is not talking about the military at all. She is only talking about getting government funds into her pocket. That is how I would answer her. She is asserting the arrogance of business to control and dominate all other human activities and this is a sick and nationally enfeebling assertion. She is proposing a theft of national vitality and the universal moral base line to private whim and therefore she is threatening national security, just as Judge Sporkin said that Bill Gates was (and still is).

We will not have the national life usurped by bumptious business people seeking to line their pockets at the expense of the public welfare.

If you would like more, I’ll be glad to respond. It is a vital matter, as you are well aware. Her assumption that government is a business is false and her proposal to take government “profits” into the private sector is, therefore, a threat to national security.

There were two images at the A/N game which emboldened this lady to write. One was of Midshipmen shirtless throughout the game and with body paint. The other was of a weeping Army player post game. The cameramen and editors, going to the drama and with their habitual ideological distaste for the military, played these images to visually ridicule the military as insane and unstable people who should not be supported.

McKinney’s defense is going to point the finger at officers and this will further embolden the lady.

I believe the military must ask people outside the government to speak for them, to triangulate on the pot-shooters. These should be, first and foremost, clergy of all faiths; second, teachers at universities; and third, labor unions. Judges and business people who understand the role of government and the military, also, must address this matter, essentially putting these ignorant, bumptious business people in the spotlight of wisdom and discernment. First, get clergy to speak for the military and academies’ essential training of the officer corps.

You will be a superb officer. Do not let these business people with their selfish agendas deflect you from your purpose. Eyes forward and feet firm. God is with you and the nation, remember, and be confident. Do your work and you will sleep well at nights, mind relaxed and clear, ready for the next day’s chores. You will be a superb officer.

I forgot to address one point you mentioned: the 17% retention rate in the services of academy graduates.

This is an easy one to answer but I forgot to make it. The answer is well known and will no doubt be made effectively by any informed government/military person.

It has always been the intention of the academies to train people for the highest national responsibilities, both civilian and military. It has always been expected that the majority of academy graduates will continue their service to the nation after fulfilling their military obligation. As you know, WP in particular was established largely to give the nation an engineering school. There was none. There was never any intention that all graduates would remain in uniform. It was expected that they would use their exceptional military training in continued service to the nation as civilians.

This was the plan. It is not attrition. It is the plan. And it is an absolutely necessary plan given the economics of society building.

The worth of the graduates to the nation has never been measured only in terms of military service only. That is only the beginning. Eisenhower was a president, MacArthur was a CEO and de facto head of state (Japan). The bridges, the waterways, the highways, the nuke plants and on and on are the result of academy graduates and their ongoing stewardship. This consequential benefit of the academies has always been not only recognized but actually planned for. It has never been the intention that all academy graduates will remain in military service. It always has been *expected* that they will conduce to the general welfare in the areas of their several callings, abilities and interest, all at high and reliable levels of responsibility. Academy graduates serve the nation whether in or out of uniform.

And they can always be called back to service, as Lincoln did Grant. This, too is important: to have a reserve force, a training and trained force, in being.

The benefit to the nation of the academy graduates — all academies — cannot be measured because it is too vast and too varied for any measuring technique. But it is so well known to exist that this lady’s argument that, if all do not stay in military service the academies are useless and should be downsized to produce only career military service graduates, is simply absurd. In fact, that argument could only arise from a tunnel-vision business person whose sight had one focus, the quarterly balance statement. If we ran the nation by a quarterly balance statement it would collapse in a day. The majority of human activity is non-for-profit by its very nature.

Did your mother and I raise you for profit? The whole notion is absurd, even obscene. Yet these moronic businesspeople want us to grant them that life and society must be for-profit.

Again, her real agenda is to divert public funds into her and her cronies’ pockets. All talk of downsizing, social problems, etc., is a red herring across their actual agenda, which is self-aggrandizement. This is why we do not allow business people to run the nation: by and large their vision is so narrow as to be lethal to society if not continuously checked and forced out into the fresh, clean air of reality, which is non-commercial.

The lady’s very capacity to spam WP is based on military infrastructure freely give to humanity — and now under attack to be thieved by private interest: e.g., Microsoft’s and Google’s.

It is possible that her attack on the national welfare is motivated by vengeful feelings nurtured by certain parties who of late have been forced to sustain appropriate reverses to their improper constructions of the nation’s affirmative action laws. The Army in particular is under scrutiny by these parties for structural weaknesses because events in the NCO ranks of late have revealed an alarming picture of some individuals generally assumed to be members of those parties’ interest group. The parties are known to be seeking ways to deflect attention from apparently systemic problems some of their assumed members embody.

When hysterical, ignorant attacks are made, the sources of it are rarely visible and neither is the actual agenda of the attacker. If they are intelligent, their first move will be a feint, not the fell blow. If that is the case with this lady’s spam, then the fell blow will be in another area as the Army and the academies are, hopefully (for her), dealing with this feint.

One should deal with a feint as appropriate and I think I have done that now with this lady’s attack, which is probably a feint. The next and better question becomes, what and where is the fell blow she and her “growing number” of supporters plan?

I suspect the fell blow has to do with the MS situation, the affirmative action/McKinney situation or with a small or inchoate agenda that is impotent. More information would be needed to move past a stage of speculation, which, obviously, I have entered here.

Anyhow, just at the matter she raises I think these two notes provide sufficient response and I am sure Academy/Pentagon/Congressional sources are able and willing to answer likewise and with equal or better effect.

The point of this note is just that it has always been expected that academy graduates will serve the nation in and out of uniform and that the expense of their national training is far, far more than recovered through that service. No one can argue against this reality and all responsible people will support it wholeheartedly. Without military engineering, communications, medicine and law the nation would have been taken over by England in 1866. Without military engineering, the lady could not spam the military.

The academies are meant to graduate civilian as well as military leaders. It is that simple. And it is also absolutely necessary that they do because business, with everything going by the profit motive, would never do it. And the universities would not do it because they do not have enough money or moral courage to provide the level of training that is required. Business would not create the waterways business needed to do business. The military did (Corps of Engineers). The list goes on and on and on. The majority of human activity is not-for-profit. This is a reality of which businesspeople are prone to lose sight. Their ignorance continuously threatens to destabilize society.

Do not worry. We will not let them. But this note gives material for answering their ignorance.

Update 1: Reverse the economics of education.

Update 2: Putting Women In Combat Is An Even Worse Idea Than You’d Think

Update 3: Murphy’s Law: The Realities Of Defense Spending

Update 4: Special Operations: What Makes It All So Special

Update 5: 6 Reasons Why Starship Troopers Is The New The Art Of War

Update 6: Army Creates Security Force Assistance Brigade and Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA