Knights and Peasants

You're right that the officer class evolved from the knights of the Middle Ages. Originally, the knights were the only people who were allowed to bear arms, and it was their job to protect the peasants. As warfare became more organized, they started recruiting peasants and yeomen to back up the knights. These guys were usually foot soldiers, and were enlisted for the duration of a particular campaign, after which they returned to their farms, while the mounted knights were career soldiers. Occasionally a peasant or yeoman would be promoted to knighthood as a reward for service above and beyond the call of duty, which is the origin of the battlefield commissions that are still awarded today. The yeoman class evolved into the NCOs of today, and I think the navy still calls some of their people "yeoman seamen". As late as World War I, the British military still drew their officers exclusively from the aristocracy, but I think that was the last major war in which that was done.

The officer academy at West Point was the first officer training school in the U.S. but, during World War II, they couldn't turn out officers as fast as they were needed, so they started OCS, which was a crash course whose graduates were called "90 day wonders". OCS can be chosen as an enlistment option, but I didn't choose it. Many of those who did ended up washing out and reverted to the enlisted ranks. I understand that it's pretty intense, and you've got to really want it to make it through to graduation. At any time during your enlistment you can apply for OCS, but the selection process is quite rigorous and, again, you've got to really want it. ROTC would have been the easiest route, if I had went to college but, by then, I didn't want to be an officer any more than I wanted to be a business executive. Like you said, I just wanted to be a regular guy. I considered that I might make a career out of the military but, by the end of basic training, I knew that wasn't going to happen. As Ann Landers used to say, "The sample was ample."

Everybody in the U.S. Army is trained to move up at last one notch in the totem pole and, if  something happens to your immediate superior, you are expected to step right into his shoes. You may or may not get the pay grade right away but, if you are in the job for any length of time, you will eventually get the promotion that goes with it. The job I held for the last year or so of my enlistment was rated as a Specialist-E5 position, but I was a PFC-E3 when my boss went home and I took his place. When the new section sergeant I told you about took over, he promised to get me promoted, but I told him not to bother since I only had about six months to go on my enlistment. He did it anyway, and I jumped two pay grades in less than a month.

I found another reference to busing in the book. This was a court ordered thing, but it was for some other Northern City, not Chicago. the Supreme Court eventually threw that one out, and it remains to be seen if the book mentions any other busing plans. They did mention that they had a tough time enforcing the court ordered integration of Southern schools. Years after it was mandated, only about 5% of them had been integrated. I'm beginning to wonder if all the special considerations that I have always begrudged the Blacks and other minorities were ever actually implemented, or lasted very long if they were. You know how it is, you read something in the paper about the House or the Senate passing some law, and you assume that the law was enacted, but maybe it wasn't. It still had to pass the other chamber and the president, and then maybe survive a court challenge. It might take several years for all this to play out and, there might be something else that commands your attention by then.