Think about Roger Staubach while listening to apologists for the U.S. Military Academy explain why it?s OK to let Army officers weasel out of service for fat professional athlete deals and recruiting duties.
The Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl VI MVP spent four years in the Navy, including one year in Vietnam, before joining the Cowboys in 1969 at age 27.
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The Baltimore Examiner?s Dave Carey reported last week that West Point got two officers off to use their “unique talents” to bring attention to the school.
What?
How about using their unique talents to win a war that our leadership asserts is tied not only to national security and cherished freedoms but also the future of Western civilization? Why don?t they bring attention to the glory of West Point the old-fashioned way, the way Staubach and another Navy great, Joe Bellino, did, along with Army?s Pete Dawkins ? accept their commissions and go where their orders take them? All three won Heisman Trophies, and Dawkins served 24 years in the Army, retiring as a brigadier general. Safety (no pun intended) Caleb Campbell and fullback Mike Viti could and should turn down the opportunity to play for the Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills, respectively. But West Point?s leaders never should have given them the option to choose playing over service.
This has nothing to do with anything so shallow as West Point?s newfound recruiting advantage over the Naval and Air Force academies.
What it has to do with is Army leadership seeming to go soft and weak in their institutional leadership, losing their core values and will.
Agree with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan or disagree. Question the strategy, tactics and execution. Berate Congress for being too chicken to declare war, or laud our wise senators and representatives for acknowledging the complex reality of 21st-Century warfare.
West Point is sending the wrong message to future cadets, America, the world ? and worst of all, our enemy in this 1,000-year war ? that we value our football games over obligated military service in the defense of our country. West Point must not validate the absurd claims of al Qaeda ? that we are weak and our nation has not the strength of will to win.
Let our enemies remember the safety who sought no safety, Pat Tillman, an Arizona Cardinals starter who volunteered for combat in Afghanistan and died there.
According to Cold, Hard Football Facts.com, 26 NFL members died in service to our nation. Almost 1,000 served in World War II, 200 during Korea and 28 during Vietnam, including Hall of Famers Charlie Joiner, Ray Nitschke and Staubach.
For their sake as well as ours, West Point must reverse this policy and require all officers to serve in Army uniforms rather than those of the Lions and the Bills.
