Class ranking at the academies do not predict success in the military or in life. This weekend I was thinking that morally class ranking can predict the reverse. The current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was first in his class at West Point and under his watch we have betrayed the Kurds and he betrayed his own staff during the impeachment hearings. Pompeo went on to Harvard Law School before entering politics. He is a brilliant man with the morals of a maggot.
At the other end of that academic ladder are John McCain and George Armstrong Custer. McCain was 894th of 899 in the class of 1958 at the US Naval Academy. Custer was last in the class of 1861 at West Point.
McCain became a Naval Aviator and a symbol of endurance and courage as a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War. He famously refused to leave his comrades and endured three more years of confinement and torture for a total of six years as a prisoner. He became a moral beacon when the reputation of the American military was the lowest it has ever been, before or since.
McCain died two years ago in August of 2018, unmourned by the draft-dodging coward in the White House.
In April of 2018, Mike Pompeo was named Secretary of State. On his path to the nomination, there was a controversy about his service. He served in West Germany near the end of the Cold War from 1986 to 1991. He never served in the Gulf War, though Try Gowdy and other Republican liars said that he did. Pompeo left the Army a captain and went to law school.
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Every soldier knows the best way to be promoted is to serve during a war--the military expands the number of leadership slots, and some of the slots become vacant in every battle.
The military is very focused on procedure in peace. In war balls and bravado rule the promotion list. No other officer who ever served in the US military has risen faster than George Armstrong Custer.
In 1861, Custer graduated last in his class at West Point Military Academy. He was 22 years old. Within two months he commanded a cavalry troop at the First Battle of Bull Run in Virginia. His bravery in battle impressed senior officers and Custer got promoted so fast he was a Brevet Brigadier General within two years, promoted just a week before the Battle of Gettysburg. He commanded a cavalry brigade at Gettysburg that kept southern cavalry from supporting Major General George Pickett's ill-fated charge, helping to ensure the defeat of Pickett and General Robert E. Lee's army at that great turning point of the war.
A month later Custer was wounded at the Battle of Culpepper Courthouse. He recovered, returned to the fight and was promoted to Brevet Major General in 1864.
By the end of the Civil War in 1865, George Custer was one of the officers with General U.S. Grant accepting the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House.
After the war, Custer became known for defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, making a huge tactical error that led to he and his command being wiped out. Hubris, said the ancient Greeks, will lead those who rise the highest to fall the farthest. He was a Major General at age 26 and dead at 36.
