Military Service Academies

Military Service Academies. Americans have long had an ambivalent relationship with their military service academies. In general, they appreciate traditions that emphasize patriotism, hard work, and discipline, but are skeptical of institutions that smack of military elitism or appear to perpetuate a distinct military caste with values and agendas different from those of society.

The nation's founders viewed willingness for military service as a key indicator of the health of the nation's republican ideals. Civic virtue meant bearing one's share of the nation's defense. A corollary of this citizen‐soldier ideal was fear of professional soldiers who did not owe allegiance to society but to the institutions that employed them. The Revolutionary War, however, raised doubts about the skills of the citizen‐soldier, especially in a severe national emergency. Ex–Continental Army officers and Federalist party members like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton advocated a regular officer corps. Ironically, it was the Federalists’ archrival, Thomas Jefferson, who authorized the establishment of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1802. West Point's founders, understanding the fears about a professional officer corps, emphasized the school's engineering reputation rather than its military functions. The army's combat record in the War of 1812 convinced national leaders of the need for better‐trained officers. Sylvanus Thayer's appointment as superintendent in 1817 led to many reforms, including more courses directly related to leading troops in battle.

The U.S. Navy initially patterned itself after Great Britain's Royal Navy in educating its officers. Midshipmen were trained at sea and their education varied, depending on the particular captain under whom they served. Concerns about this irregular system escalated following the 1842 Somers incident in which a midshipman, whose father happened to be the secretary of war, led a shipboard mutiny. In 1845, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, temporarily serving as secretary of war, established the Naval Academy at Fort Severn in Annapolis, Maryland. It almost closed during the Civil War after its relocation to Rhode Island and with many students assigned to the naval blockade of the Confederacy. Naval reformers like David Porter and Stephen Luce, however, revitalized the school in the postwar years.

As the nation's military expanded in the twentieth century, the academies became central to a highly stratified system of officer education. Academy graduates dominated the leadership of both services during the two world wars and solidified public faith in the service academy system. The Cold War Era, however, saw the end of the service academies’ monopoly as the sole providers of regular officers. New programs like Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and Officer Candidate School (OCS), based in civilian colleges and universities, eventually provided the bulk of regular officers to both services. The academies began emphasizing instead their role in maintaining service traditions and values and in providing officers who remained for an entire career. The U.S. Air Force Academy was established at Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1954, confirming the importance of airpower to strategic planning. During the 1970s and 1980s, each of the academies made greater efforts to incorporate minorities and eventually women into their ranks because of pressure to make the officer corps more representative of society.
See also Military, The.

Bibliography

Stephen Ambrose , Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point, 1966.
Joseph Ellis and and Robert Moore , School for Soldiers: West Point and the Profession of Arms, 1974.
Allan R. Millett and and Peter Maslowski , For the Common Defense, 1984.
Jack Sweetman and and Thomas Cutler , The U.S. Naval Academy: An Illustrated History, 1995.

Todd Forney