The elite, too, produced its cowards and incompetents. Those officers had been imbued with social rules of integrity, both moral and financial, that set a tone for others to study and attain. Imagine but one of the men named above accepting a retirement job flogging metal for Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman. Such men knew when to take a stand, and would have turned in their stars before they acquiesced in looting the public. Of course, many of our finest officers rose from humble origins.
Moral quality is infectious.
The military knows this, and speaks nobly of leadership by example. But the men who mouth those words now speak of ghosts. Vietnam harmed our nation less than commentators imagine, but struck our military a savage, lasting blow. In each war until then, the sons of Harvard and Princeton served. Their names are etched on memorials to the dead.