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Now is the Naval Academy’s long winter of discontent made glorious summer. A special commission headed up by USNA alumnus and former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner reported out last June. In its report, The Higher Standard, the commission largely shrugs off allegations that the academy has become a school for scandel. All the major embarrassments and problems—ranging from sexual harassment and cheating to car theft rings and even murder, simply point outthe need for more careful screening of applicants. Admittedly, too many of the worst products of our permissive society have somehow slipped into the fold in recent years. But the academy itself, the commission insists, remains “fundamentally sound.” As a retired Marine major and a former member of the academy’s English Department, I can attest that this is so. The Naval Academy is “sound” in that it still functions wonderfully well as a service academy. But that is precisely the problem. The recent scandals, ironically, have only diverted attention from how effectively the Navy actually performs the dubious mission all three of our national service academies exist to perform. Service academies are cloisters. They exist to wean a select few away from the mores and values of mainstream America. And, as the commission’s report itself suggests, to socialize them in what their proponents hold to be the “higher standard” of unquestioning loyalty and selfless service. Indoctrination, not education, remains the primary goal of Army, Air Force, and Navy alike. Here, however, is where the United States Navy has always had the competitive edge. It alone has structured its academy to keep the mental and moral horizons of its graduates relatively unclouded by the ambiguities and uncertainties of liberal education. Ever since its inception in 1845, the Naval Academy has rested upon a myth: Academy founder George Bancroft so revered education that he hired a cadre of civilian professors to do it right. And thus it has been ever since. No officers are permanently assigned to the Naval Academy. They only pass through on two- or three-year tours. The permanent faculty is exclusively civilian. In principle, this arrangement should make Navy the most enlightened and progressive of the academies—an enviable alliance between Athens and Sparta. In practice, it has resulted in a “house divided”—an uneasy marriage of convenience between two parties, neither of which likes or trusts the other. truth be told, The Naval Academy's civilian faculty is not the hallmark of any great concern for education; it's the mark of the Navy's indifference. |