[lit-ideas] Re: Do we still have Grants and Shermans?
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:11:48 +0900
On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 8:10 AM, David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
> Does warfare tend to produce better commanders than military academies in
> peacetime? Are tennis players who only have a theoretical knowledge of the
> game likely to be good tennis players? I can't see that Hanson is telling
> us much.
>
The analogy warfare:military academies in peacetime::practical:theoretical
misses, I believe, the extraordinary amount of practical training that an
academy education includes. The amount of such training my daughter received
at Annapolis was one of the major elements differentiating her experience
from any that I enjoyed at Michigan State or Cornell. Of course, that
training was largely restricted to things a junior officer should know. It
was, however, far from purely theoretical.
A better tennis analogy might be someone who has trained for a while with a
good coach and plays a decent amateur game, who has now, however, played in
a major tournament.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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