Letter of the day
OpinionJournal.com's James Taranto is on vacation, but before he left he got a lot of letters reacting to Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel's claim that the only reason people go into the military is because they can't get good jobs in the private sector. Taranto's been dribbling these letters out over the past few days, and one he published today from Ari Steinmetz is great.
I was also struck by the Doonesbury arc in which a student declares he can best serve his country at a hedge fund. My story is something of the opposite.
I tried to gain admission to the Air Force Academy but, while I received a congressional nomination, my school record wasn't strong enough. I tried to enlist after college to enter flight school, but my recruiter said competition for such slots was too stiff and my test scores weren't high enough. My fallback was the M.B.A. program at Columbia. After one semester there, my recruiter called me up to say a slot had opened for me. I jumped at the chance and dropped out of school. After three months of officer training I shipped out to flight school at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Okla. While I had a great time, once again I didn't make the cut and flunked out after nine months. I went back and finished my M.B.A. Now I am a mutual fund manager.
So, you see, I had to settle for an Ivy League M.B.A. and a Wall Street career because I wasn't good enough for the military.
Charlie Rangel, looking like a bigger fool as the days pass.
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The flip side to the coin is that while being a fighter pilot is quite cool, to say one will never get rich doing it is a gross understatement (and pilots get paid substantially more than non-flyers).
It would be more accurate to say that choosing to go into the military for a career will prevent you from becoming rich. Where else can you work in an environment that demands 12 hours per day to simply keep up with everyone else? Overtime? Christmas bonuses? Not so much. At least we get to not pay taxes while bad people are shooting at us.
Still, I wouldn't trade this life in to be Bill Gates. At least not until my 20 years are up. After that, all Fortune 500 companies should expect to see my resume!