Ask a West Point cadet anything

>War is a moral gray area, there are certain choices to take for a greater good

You have been brainwashed, but it doesn't take much to make an american forget all morality.

Why was Napoleon so shit at chess?

So what's the deal with west point anyway? It's just a liberal arts school that gives you a commission upon graduation right? I always thought west point was the school where you learn military history and tactics and grand strategy and basically how to be a general, but it turns out the military sends you to war college to learn that once you make general rank as far as I understand.

are you circumcised?

What do you think of the fetishization of the military in american culture.

Just admit you're jealous of the ROTC cadets who got to have a real college experience.

What is your favorite read that you have done for your courses(?) so far?

Do you prefer butter or margarine?

People tend not to look at the big picture, and this has a tendency to warp perception. I'm not too familiar with Belton Cooper, but misinformation spreads through the military sphere especially well due to numerous factors, including the pressure put on the military to innovate as well as the public opinion pressures that the heads of the military face. I could elaborate on this if you would like.

Applying is a long process but not especially hard, you can find it on the Academy's website. And we don't choose a branch until the senior year.

Nazi Germany had no chance, its entire economy was a short-sighted gamble on military expansion, and although working for a few years would have crumbled if it stopped expanding (hence the decision to invade Russia). It is impossible to maintain a regime under such conditions, and unless radical economic reforms had happened (which would have been impossible unless Germany was in a stable peace).

As for the other part, West Point and Sandhurst (I'm actually on one of the Sandhurst teams) doesn't teach you very much on grand strategy tactics. West Point's priority is to make you a platoon leader, one capable of upon graduating leading a platoon sized element in whatever branch you go to.

It's hard to say how to avoid being an armchair general: I'm not a general officer nor will I likely ever be. That is an experience a select few will ever have. If you want to look at war in a true sense, though, you must look at it holistically, not just taking in to account "military logistics," but the logic behind decisions. You can not judge the ethics of using atomic power on Japan, for instance, if you do not put yourself in the position of Truman and his advising generals. People make that mistake too often and use hindsight bias that warps reality.

I've read an article by a West Point "teacher" (or whatever the title) saying the institution was in an alarming state of decadence. Your thought?

Are StuGs tanks?

I think we tend to backjudge Nazi Germany -because- Hitler's intention was war from the moment he was elected. All the debt accrued was deliberate and designed to feed the war machine heralding the struggle.

That's why I laugh at "what if Germany just didn't invade czechoslovakia???" threads. The end goal was always war. It would be like waiting in a very long line to get to the slide and deciding you'd rather go to the bouncy castle instead. If Hitler didn't want war from the outset, the MEFO bills would not be a factor in the Germany economy in 1939.

But of course, that would be asking Hitler to not be Hitler...

OP here, leaving to visit family for Thanksgiving. Will be back tonight. Will answer your questions then.

Do you have an example

Is Jomini still taught?

Mostly they're in the realm of idiotic internet discussions. I've heard people claim that Hannibal left behind troops in what's now Southern France to help manage his logistics. (being delivered form where?) Or that the Pearl Harbor targeting list was fatally flawed, and that the Japanese should have been targeting the one oiler present, because "logistics", and that the U.S. would not have been able to use Honolulu as a base without them. Or that the United States was too "logistically stretched" to win in Vietnam.

>And we don't choose a branch until the senior year.

Please tell me you're referring to putting in your interest for a certain career field and not ""branch"".

I found that part weird too, I always thought west point strictly graduates army officers but after reading their wiki page it seems unclear. It appears that they are a general academy for commissioning officers in the "military' so perhaps graduates do indeed get to choose their branch (USMC army etc.)

Do you masturbate to pregnant Anne Frank porn?

Oh yeah and VMI btw

Exciting. Will be awaiting return.

Not the OP, but fetishization of the military is far healthier option than demonization.

If a tribe wants to survive, it offers respect to the people who fight to defend the tribe. It doesn't ask them to fight and die to defend the tribe and then call them baby killers afterwards.

Why are you such a boot bitch

Are you 1776boo or what? Also, what was up with that commie fag graduate?

Are you from the South, and what's the demography of students at West Point?

What are you doing about the Communist problem?

So what's the deal with the communist shermanigger?

I dont get this shit at all. The thing about Sherman was that he hated the south for betraying the union first and foremost. As he saw it, they spat upon the constitution AND the bill of rights, so they deserved none of the protections it offered, nor did they deserve mercy. He would take great joy in beating the ever living shit out of this faggot and other antifa types with glee

well the answer is that the confederate rebels represent a conservative right-wing undercurrent of america.
regardless of the union's reasons for suppressing secession, the left will suck their own dicks dry with dreams of liberationist heroism.

Hey everyone, I'm back. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing, it's the first time I've seen a lot of my family in quite a long time.

Yes.

I try not to ask about or judge the way the public perceives the military, it is not my place to do that. There are a lot of people that put soldiers on a pedestal, but there are also a lot of people who dislike the services with a passion. Both are right in their own way, and it is their opinion.

Tiny bit, I can't leave to go hookup with with girls regularly, nor can I drink regularly. But at the same time West Point has an incredible amount of perks that outweigh all of that, like the increased access to training cadets here have as well as the unimpeded access to high ranking officers who can teach you incredible things about life. It's not every day that you can walk up to a field grade officer after class and schedule a meeting to casually talk about his leadership and ethical experiences in combat. There are opportunities you can get here that ROTC cadets unfortunately can't. That's not to say ROTC cadets are any less of officers (because they aren't), nor is the regular college life any worse. They're just two different paths to the same goal.

Probably a short excerpt by George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946). It's a nice read about how people tend to use euphemisms rather than directly say what they're talking about. Like Russian pacification, instead of brutal Communist crackdowns involving mass murders. It's nice to have a conversation about the morals of using "flowery language" to hide disgusting realities that maybe the public doesn't need to hear about.

Butter. Margarine can't compare.

Mishpiman reporting in, Go Navy Beat Army!

This is a false spectrum. Fetishization and demonization can coexist and co-proliferate.

The actual peril is dismissal.

Answer me plz

What do you think about Assbabies? Have you met any personally?

Answer my post!

It's a running joke here that every West Point class thinks the class after them has had it easier. "The Corps has" is what people say. West Point may have become less brutal than in the past but that's because shooting people with coins launched from a candlestick cannon to "initiate" them is stupid. You don't make soldiers and leaders by beating them senseless in a bathroom nor by giving them absurd amounts of work so that they're doomed to fail. West Point is modernized, but by no means decadent.

The article you're referring to I assume is from LTC Heffington, it rose a lot of stir around campus. A lot of the anecdotal evidence he used was very sketchy, and his argument loses a lot of credibility as you read in to what he was actually saying. For instance, a cadet with tattoos in jeans (tattoos, as long as they can be covered by full uniform are permitted, and first class cadets are allowed to wear civilian clothes after duties end) is nothing against the rules, but rather something a very bitter man is upset by.

I'm not an armor man.

Exactly, there was little doubt after the Night of the Long Knives where Europe was going.

In history classes, yes.

Branches refer to your "career field," being Infantry, Armor, Military Intelligence, Quartermaster, etc.

West Point commissions graduates as Army officers, but you are able to apply for a cross commission to the other military services. The only academy that gives you a genuine choice in commissioning is the Merchant Marine Academy (believe it or not), where graduates have a much easier time in jumping services.

Tell me about VMI, I met a few of your cadets during SCUSA earlier this month. Said something about making your plebes put your boots on.

dude you're a fucking plebe, i know you're excited that Veeky Forums isn't blocked cause you just got home and you're no longer on the DREN, but this is gay as fuck. drop your xnumber so I can write a COR on your ass

honestly m8 what's the deal with this guy

But idolization of the military is also a fault. When people stop questioning the military and its actions, the military (as any other organization with no oversight) will stray from the interests of the public and elected officials. The military is a profession in the management of violence (idea from Huntington), and as such only society as a whole will have the responsibility to own it. If there are not people to question the military's actions, society no longer controls violence.

The Constitution is a living and breathing document, it ought be changed as society moves along. But otherwise, yes, I like the Fourth of July.

Rapone was a mistake the Academy made, a failure of leadership to identify and deal with a problem who made himself known at multiple points in his West Point experience. Everyone makes mistakes though, and every once in a while you get a bad cadet who makes the Army look bad.

No, Midwest. West Point tries to make itself a representation of the country as a whole, we have representative demographics from that. I'm sure you could find the actual statistics from the website, but it's fair. There are a lot of Southerners, though.

Read above.

See you in two weeks.

My bad, I thought I answered you. It's difficult to categorize West Point, being that it is a military academy. It is a liberal arts college in a sense, but at the same time a lot of military and physical stressors and expectations are put on cadets. As for what they build someone in to, the point of the academy is to develop junior grade officers and lieutenants who will lead platoon sized elements. There is much more training and many more courses outside of West Point for higher grade officers, including Career Course Training for Captains, or War College for higher, field grade officers.

Cow. But you're right, being on home wifi is a lot better.

well then what branch are you going to choose? I'm not interested in applying, I was just curious how you in particular got in. I know a cousin of mine scored pretty high on some test and transferred from rotc to an academy

How important is Israel as a military ally, really?

Did you get a sweet ass handgun?

>I'm not a general officer nor will I likely ever be.
Why?

Is Trump discussed?

Wants your opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the west point model compared to the sandurst one? I understand that commenwealth countries domminate the sandhurst competition as they are leadership/military skills only insitutions where as west point has a more holistic approach?

Someone said to me the sandhurst excels at creating infantry platoon leaders where as west point graduates make better generals in the long run. Does that opinion have any merit?

>tfw you wanted a united America, but not like this.
>tfw Sherman wanted a united union because the south was putting together the articles of confederation pt2.
>tfw we almost got Hispaniola as a state for southern blacks.
>tfw we will never again get that amazing boom of militaristic power form the 1870s to 1900.
>We will never have Cuba be a state.
>We will never own northern Mexico.

Commies will say that this is somehow the best outcome.

>we
as if you have a stake in american empire. Even now Your job is on its way to be either outsourced or given to a h1bpajeet

What are the advantages of joining ROTC as opposed to doing a military college