We'd better be careful, this may turn into a series...

Between this post by antitool, following up this one by yours truly, and now this timely piece courtesy of the USAFA Association of Graduates (yes I am a member), we might have ourselves a little running series.  I wonder when our local Professor Himself (ahem, that's YOU Pidge) will chime in?

In that earlier post I wrote: 

"2) how you perceive the tug-og-war between preparing military officers for service and providing a degree-granting college education"

Perhaps an answer...

Professor of the year teaches future leaders 

By Butch Wehry
Academy Spirit staff

Is instructing at the Academy different than at a civilian school? "It had better be different," said Lt. Col. Tom McGuire, the 2007 Carnegie Foundation Advancement of Teaching Professor of the year. "There's the obvious knowledge that among your class you may have future squadron and wing commanders, general officers, and perhaps even congresswomen and congressmen. With this in mind, one tries to make a small contribution to the important formation of cadets by giving them a solid grounding in oral and written communication, ethical leadership, understanding character as well as cultivating a broad historical and cultural perspective."

The Department of English and Fine Arts associate English professor was presented the award in Washington, D.C. at a luncheon at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on Thursday. His particular field - the study of the intersection between literature and violence - receives different accents and emphasis in a military academy environment. Many civilian English professors teach and write about the literature of violence, but few specifically focus on war literature.

"Very few civilian universities, for example, devote an entire course to war literature - it's kind of taboo," said the 17 - and-one-half year Air Force veteran from Auburn, Calif. "We not only teach tons of war lit in my department, we publish an internationally acclaimed journal of war, literature and the arts - edited by my mentor Donald Anderson. In contrast to my civilian counterparts, I feel a profound responsibility to explore the literature of war with my cadets."

The fact that many of his students will soon be serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas, lends the study of war literature a certain immediacy and gravitas. So when he shares Osama Bin Laden's poetry with his students and analyzes it with an eye not only to its artistry but also its ideology, his students are keenly interested and invested in the study of war lit. For them and the colonel, it's not just an academic, ivory tower exercise....

(more)

And to think, civilian institutions probably think that they're avant garde` for studying UBL's poetry.  :)

BTW, sir:  Since I've graduated, I have developed a newfound respect and ability to enjoy Rudyard Kipling and any disgusted intellects out there, you can run and scream in horror now (racist!  fascist!  imperialist! yeah yeah yeah next slide).  Honestly, I would have liked to have taken this war literature class.  The closest we ever got war literature in my education prior to USAFA was "All Quiet on the Western Front" and Ambrose Bierce.  I guess those two works were supposed to tell me everything I (or any studuent) were supposed to know about this fundamental (and tragic, yes) human activity.

One thing I realized, wisely, when I was a cadet and have since grown to appreciate is that I did receive one hell of a comprehensive, well-rounded education (I know, I know, spare us the cliches and propaganda MOGS, but hear me out:  I have a Bachelor of Science in History.  Why?  How many history majors out there have also taken Aero(dynamics), Astro(nautical Engineering), Thermo(dynamics), Elec(trical) Engineering, you get the idea...okay so they were the "for poets" versions, but I think you get the picture):

Three things really stand out in my mind, in-line very much with what Lt Col McGuire here mentions:

1) My Russian classes taught by native speakers, who came to the US to escape the thumb of Soviet oppression.  Also, my veteran, dedicated "Cold Warrior" Russian instructors who could tell stories to leave YOUR hair white of the "old days" of a divided Berlin (the other day, I realized I was talking to a COLLEGE STUDENT WHO WAS BORN AFTER "THE WALL") - Let me tell you, that as much as these people respected, and even admired our Russian and Soviet adversaries, they had no illusions about the "worker's paradise" (see, you even get a MOGS' Russia Monologue Preview for free too).

2) My History of Unconventional Warfare Class (My favorite class in fact), with a professor who was a brilliant intelligence officer with a background in Special Operations, who let me read everything from Che's book (ptooey!), to Mao, to Ho Ngyuen Giap, the Handbook of the IRA, all sorts of nasty dirty little works that not only taught me much about the enemy, but about ourselves, about war, about idealism and how it could be used and abused (the Troubles come to mind)  It seems to me like some schools teach these things in a "how to  destroy Western Civilization" frame of mind.  I studied it in a "how to preserve it" frame of mind. 

3). Philosophy.  Our one core curriculum philosophy course had a very certain book, which in the way it was used as both inspiration for the class itself AND part of its required readings is just so....meta I guess, as to be inherently awesome.  Between our studies of Kant, John Stuart Mill and others, we read

Starship Troopers, by one each Robert Anson Heinlein  :)  No, not the bloody movie, the goddamn cartoon show was closer to the actual book.  But, as far as the movie goes, Paul Verhoeven got it wrong.  Way wrong.  Way way way wrong.  That's another discussion.  Actually, in my case, it's a lecture.  I don't care how hot Denise Richards is, (okay, well actually I do, but that's small compensation), Robocop aside, Paul Verhoeven is an idiot.

See how cutting edge USAFA is?  We're META goddamitt!!!  Take THAT you post-modern POGUES :)

Sorry, back to the Philo class.  Seriously, moral philosophy and just war, jus in bello, jus ad bello, civic virtue, dulce et decorum est and all that.  Heinlein.  Citizenship.  The role of military.  Go all the way back to Plato and Homer even.  Jesus.  Mohammed.  Lao Tsu and Confuscious.  The only thing that would have owned even more, would have been if we'd read Ender's Game as a companion piece. 

Oh yeah, and that final.  Three questions.  Three hours.  Thirteen sides of lined paper, handwritten. One nasty writer's cramp.  A-

I may have an answer.