No, the drill instructors at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York are not privates. It takes a minimum of three years to train a drill instructor and only those who demonstrate high excellence will be selected to train the Plebes at USMA.
Also, the majority of Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets have no prior military experience. Some are prior enlisted military, but most earn their ROTC scholarship as high school juniors or enter ROTC as college freshmen.
Personally, I entered the Air Force Officer Training School as part of an education program for exceptional enlisted people who were eager to study the physical sciences or engineering. I had 13 years of enlisted time behind me when I was commissioned a second lieutenant.
The United States military system was far different before WW II from what it became afterwards. It would take a book to describe those differences. The best novel that covers it is "Once an Eagle." However, the structure of the United States military had virtually nothing to do with our lack of preparation for war.
It will take far too long to describe here, but one could argue that the United States was as well prepared for war as any of the allied participants in spite of American reluctance to face the upcoming war. England (Great Britain and the Commonwealth) and France declared war on Germany on 2 October 1939. In spite of this, they were still unprepared to meet the German invasion of France in May 1940. Seven months after declaring war, they were unprepared to engage in combat with a country that was distinctly weaker than their combination. In addition, They had mad no significant effort in those seven months to engage the Germans militarily. They surrendered the initiative without a contest.
Meanwhile, President Franklin Roosevelt, not my favorite president by a long shot, argued, cajoled, and flim-flammed an isolationist congress into making some preparations for a war that he clearly expected. By the summer of 1941 the US Army Air Force was growing rapidly, the US Army was building a new national headquarters building (when finished The Pentagon would become the largest office building in the world and remain so until the 1970's), and newly built US destroyers were escorting British convoys across the North Atlantic (a violation of the Neutrality Act that might have resulted in President Roosevelt's impeachment had things turned out a little differently).
It's easy to criticize the United States for not saving Europe from itself sooner than we did, but we have always been reluctant to allow the affairs in The Old World to affect us too directly. After nearly eight years of keeping the world "safe for democracy" from the communists and later from terrorists, the American people are increasingly demanding a new military isolationism. You and I may live to see (less than a generation, 20 years from now) a world in which the United States is exerting little influence and shows little concern for the affairs of the world. I think that is going to happen and if it does no one is likely to enjoy the consequences. I predict that the result will be a new world war that will start in Asia, specifically in the South China Sea. The Republic of Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Republic of the Philippines will ally against an aggressive People's Republic of China over control of the economic resources there.
Eventually, the United States and Europe will be drawn into that war because of the global nature of war as well as the global nature of the economy.
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kartoon-1
11 years ago
Sad but true.
Every time America gets involved with another nations problems they're told to mind their own business.
Then when they don't get involved they get cursed out for not helping.
It's enough to make anyone throw up their hands in disgust!
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