(from Fortune.com):
By Matthew F. Cancian and Michael W. Klein
The law of unintended consequences is alive and well in a strange place: more Americans are going to college, which is a good thing, but it has reduced the quality of officers joining the military.
I saw the importance of having a high-quality officer corps firsthand when I was deployed with an infantry company to Sangin, Afghanistan in 2011. For seven frustrating months, our battalion was stuck in a Groundhog’s day of either finding Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) or having the IEDs find us. The only variation was imposed on us by the actions of the other side.
Waiting for the plane home, I joked to another officer, “That was nothing like what the counterinsurgency manual described.”
“I wouldn’t know – I haven’t read it,” he replied. “I don’t need a book to tell me what to do.” CONTINUE READING HERE