TFW2005
Hisstank
Thundercats
TokuNation
Toyark
Home
News
G.I. Joe Movie
G.I. Joe Classified
G.I. Joe Vintage
Compatible Military Toys
G.I. Joe Comics
G.I. Joe Conventions
All News Categories
Photo Shoots
Database
G.I. Joe Database Index
G.I. Joe Classified
G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary
G.I. Joe Resolute
G.I. Joe Movie
G.I. Joe Pursuit of Cobra
G.I. Joe Renegades
G.I. Joe 30th Anniversary
G.I. Joe Retaliation
G.I. Joe Basic
G.I. Joe 50th Anniversary
G.I. Joe Con & Club
G.I. Joe FSS
Forum
Recent Posts Page
Characters
Snake Eyes
Cobra Commander
Destro
Baroness
Storm Shadow
Roadblock
Companies
Fun Pub
IDW
DeNA
Sideshow
Gentle Giant
Boss Fight
Ori Toy
Marauder
HissTank.com
>
HissTank.com - G.I. Joe
Integration
User Name
Remember Me?
Password
Rules
Register
Community
Today's Posts
Search
Community Links
Social Groups
Pictures & Albums
Members List
Search Forums
Show Threads
Show Posts
Advanced Search
Go to Page...
Thread
:
What secrets lurk in the filecards?
View Single Post
05-31-2009, 11:33 AM
zuludelta
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Troynos
Grid-Iron.. I like the updated look, mean and lean. The way he's holding the shot-gun with his left hand looks very awkward. I tried to put my wrist in that position and it hurts, lol. Maybe turn it and point the barrel up and it'll look better.
Good point about the left hand. I missed that. Will have to adjust it.
Again, not that I want to be contentious or anything, I just want to introduce an alternative viewpoint to oliverbox's comments regarding West Point and his statement that West Point is equivalent to the Ivy League schools in terms of the academic education. Again, these are excerpted from
an essay
written by John T. Reed (West Point Class of 1968, Ranger School Class 3-68, and former 82nd Airborne platoon leader), with the statistics referenced from
US News & World Report Ultimate College Guide 2005
:
Quote:
Many West Point graduates say that West Point is the equivalent of an Ivy League college.
No, it’s not. Maybe it was in the past when it was smaller and the military was more popular with the public, but not now.
If you peruse any college guidebook in a book store, you will find where West Point stacks up in SAT scores. Here is a comparison of West Point SAT scores with those of colleges with similar scores and with two Ivy League schools. (Source: US News & World Report Ultimate College Guide 2005)
So, West Point ain’t bad. But it ain’t Harvard. The school it most closely matches is Yeshiva University which has the same SAT scores. The closest non-religious schools to West Point are Maryland and Skidmore.
A lot of people, including West Pointers, point to its ratio of applicants to admissions to prove how hard it is to get in and how great a school it must therefore be. First, games can be played with those numbers. How do you define an applicant for a place like West Point which has a convoluted, Congressional application process? Also, is the low acceptance rate proving high student standards or the attraction of a free education? In fact, it is the latter as evidenced by the relatively low SAT scores in comparison to the other schools with similarly low acceptance rates like Harvard...
... One of the main things colleges do is teach their students how to think critically, creatively, how to think for themselves, independently.
How does West Point do in that department?
Surely, you jest.
Once, at West Point, I participated in an extemporaneous speaking contest. The assigned topic was the anti-war protesters. This was at the height of the Vietnam War. I said that the lack of such people was one of the reasons Germany and Japan went so far wrong in the years leading up to World War II. I got my ass chewed for the content and logic of my speech, not my public-speaking ability which was the only thing the contest was about. An officer judge called my reasoning “incongruous” and threw me out of the competition.
At most college campuses, federal public policy and the wisdom of elected and appointed officials are hotly-debated topics. They should be, although I get annoyed when a college town or a dorm room adopts its own foreign policy.
At West Point, those are more or less taboo topics. When you attend West Point, you are an active-duty member of the U.S. Army and the federal government, as are your instructors and administrators. You may not criticize public policy or officials, period. I think it’s even illegal unless you complain directly to a Congressperson...
... As I said, I believe it is literally illegal under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for active-duty military personnel—including cadets, professors, and administrators at West Point—to criticize government policy. Professors at, say, the JFK School of Government at Harvard, frequently criticize current government policy in class, in speeches, and in journal articles. I would be astonished if you could find more than a tiny bit of such public criticism from active duty military cadets or officers stationed at West Point.
Military expert journalist Tom Rick wrote a Washington Post article that called for closing West Point. One of the Army studies he quoted said West Point graduates were not so hot at thinking “outside the box.”
... By the way, the socialism versus capitalism debate does not occur at West Point because they know which is best: socialism. The U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. military are both run on strict Marxist principles:
- From each according to his rank. To each according to his family size.
- Free, unlimited medical care for your whole family with no deductible from cradle to grave.
- Free housing, legal advice, clothing always and meals when you travel or are in the field.
- Soviet-style central planning.
- You work in the job they tell you, where they tell you, when they tell you.
- Military service is characterized, like Soviet life, by lots of standing in lines. Hurry up and wait.
- No freedom of speech or press.
U.S. military officers are expected to be political eunuchs.
By definition, a college that gives you a two-inch thick loose leaf binder with extremely detailed instructions as to how to “display” your underpants is not encouraging its students to think either critically, creatively, or independently. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is best, West Point’s rating for teaching critical, creative, independent thinking is about a minus 2. That’s not to say no West Point graduates are capable of such thinking, only that it was neither taught nor encouraged at West Point. I think it’s fair to say that, as a group, West Point graduates are not known for critical or creative or non-party-line commentary...
... Year in and year out, people say that West Point cadets are what?
Very polite and well mannered and mature beyond our years
Dates and friends and relatives commented on our “Cadetiquette” when we were there. We actually studied “Cadetiquette.” I still have the text book. One Ivy League girl I dated asked, after I spent a weekend with her at her parents’s house and sent flowers to her mom, “Is West Point a finishing school?” When I graduated in 1968, I and my classmates got a number of unsolicited comments when we were 22 and 23 years old that we were more mature than our civilian college peers. After that, the civilian peers caught up.
That’s it, bro. I have never in the 40 years since I graduated from West Point heard the sentence “Year in and year out, people say that West Point cadets are ______?” filled in with any other words than “polite,” “well-mannered,” and “mature.” The fact that I never heard any other words in that sentence is really West Point’s report card. It stands out in comparison to other colleges ONLY for those three things. That’s pretty weak considering the effort, time, and money expended by the cadets, faculty, and taxpayers to create West Point graduates.
If no one else can fill in that blank persuasively, West Point’s unique approach to education is nothing but a bunch of half-baked, Nineteenth Century, theories that sound logical, but don’t work, a fact which the people who run West Point are astonishingly blind or indifferent to. An old cadet saying puts it very well and far too accurately,
West Point is 207 years of tradition unmarked by progress.
__________________
Last edited by zuludelta; 05-31-2009 at
11:44 AM
..
zuludelta
View Public Profile
Send a private message to zuludelta
Find More Posts by zuludelta
Sponsors
Recent Threads
G.I. Joe Classified Series Official Thread 2024!
NON-G.I. Joe Play Sets That Rock!
Delta-17 o-ring line
Pick the next VAMP-level vehicle
I WANT TO ARGUE! Part XXI, About the 2024 HasLab
G.I.Joe Classified Picture thread
Super7 Ultimates (Could-be the Official) Thread
Top 5 LEAST liked characters or figures from GI Joe
Modern G.I.Joe Haul thread
Classifeid sized OV-10 Bronco Variant
THE INITIATIVE Dio-Story
Customizer's Water Cooler
Classified Recondo (Retro)
Classified Duke (Retro)
Classified Scarlett (Retro)
O-Ring Returns to G.I. Joe
3D Printing Advice
Battle Action Force Returns!
THEN and NOW
Sparks
Marauder Task Force Super Thread
Classified Night Force Jodie "Shooter"...
Whose waist is this?
Classified Clutch with VAMP (Multi-Purpose Attack...
New Classified Firefly: Did yours have tight joints or...
Recent Off Topic Threads
What song are you listening to?
2024 Toy Hauls
Hisstank Late Night thread...
Last Movie You Watched?
G.I. Joe March Madness 2024 Round 3 Dreadnok...
Recent B/S/T Threads
looking for weapons and assorted pieces 25th Ann -50...
80s GI Joe Vehicles & Aircraft
Hellion42's BST list
Wtb 82-83 file cards or?.
Closet Cleanout...
Vintage Tomahawk for sale, 99% complete
FOR SALE: "Master of Disguise" Zartan, Pulse...
MagicWazard's B/S/T thread