The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Defense in a Changing World BOHN WE SAT in one of those long, low, shining glass palaces looking away toward Pike's Peak and the earnest young officer who was...
...At West Point, the ratio is 40 to 60...
...Through these studies the cadet develops the skills of speaking and writing effective English...
...When the full quota of sludents has been received, the Academy will enroll 2,550 aspiring airmen...
...When I heard that a slice of Colorado up against the Rockies had finally been chosen, I thought in a general way that it was a good decision...
...Rather than knowing this or that set of particular things, they will need to know how to learn, how to adapt themselves to new situations, how to cooperate with other services and with civilians...
...Within a few years, all the technics of this sort of thing will be replaced by others...
...But this statement from a teacher in a sister institution almost brought me up out of my chair...
...And the time devoted to science is divided evenly between basic science and applied science...
...But at the new Academy, these two branches of learning take up equal proportions of the student's time...
...Unless I am much mistaken, the Academy planners had in mind the possibility that some of these air-trained men might play some part in international relations...
...attains facility in understanding, speaking, reading and writing foreign languages and acquires a knowledge of the Western heritage and contemporary world civilization...
...It has a new spirit, new purposes and a new program...
...The first class has 750 and the total number now in residence is 1,500...
...An H-bomb is different from a howitzer and requires a different sort of strategy...
...They must be ready to manage in situations and with techniques which the smartest professor cannot even begin to imagine at the present time...
...To select an appropriate site, the Secretary of the Air Force appointed a distinguished commission...
...It was in 1954 that Congress authorized the creation of our Air Force Academy...
...What we need are not mere fliers...
...Airplanes will change in this atomic age, methods of flying will be altered, air strategy cannot long remain the same...
...One of the bulletins handed to new students contains the following paragraph: "The division of humanities offers courses in English, philosophy, foreign languages and history...
...These men traveled 20, 000 miles and considered spots in 22 states...
...From away back I have heard educators criticize the course of study in our Army school...
...In a very few minutes he made us realize that this institution is not merely a new establishment in handsome new buildings and in a new part of the country...
...But the new architecture spread out on that wide prairie in that clear air and against that massive bastion of peaks is something unimaginably novel and wonderful...
...It was one of the men in this office who said to me that he would not tend a son of his to West Point...
...As Captain Butler put it, the Academy is not a trade school...
...This was, of course, just about the juiciest plum that Washington ever had to hand out...
...I had been told, of course, that the new Academy buildings are brilliant examples of modern architecture...
...It is bright and sharp, clear and horizontal like the great setting that has been waiting for it...
...acquires an appreciation of literature: develops an understanding of major philosophical problems...
...He explained that at Annapolis, liberal studies and applied sciences are in the ratio of 20 to 80...
...Said Butler: "We want to turn out career-motivated kids ready to give 30 years to their country serving as best they can in the changing strategy of the unified national defense...
...At the Public Relations Office, we met Captain Franklin C. Butler, who put himself at our disposal and gave us a lively and exciting interview about the Academy and the Air Force...
...But until I went out there and rolled over the wide plains toward the great wall of mountains...
...Men who had learned nothing but the details of flying and fighting on the wing would soon be stranded and useless...
...By liberal studies, the airmen mean history, social studies, psychology, philosophy...
...There is no sense in making aeronautic engineers out of the cadets...
...I had no idea how right that decision was...
...THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Defense in a Changing World BOHN WE SAT in one of those long, low, shining glass palaces looking away toward Pike's Peak and the earnest young officer who was explaining the new United States Air Force Academy said solemnly: "I would never send a son of mine to West Point...
...This new school to serve a new department and a new purpose should be in the new West...
...Tt follows the lines of the land...
Vol. 42 • September 1959 • No. 34
