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This is not an endorsement of Dr. Carson for President, but clarification. Politico published one of the slimiest hit pieces ever on Ben Carson that was so riddled with falsehoods that they had to stealth edit the headline and lede, and it still manages to be wrong.

Basically, in his memoirs, Ben Carson stated that while in high school ROTC, he had the opportunity to meet with then Army Chief of Staff GEN William Westmoreland. At that meeting, Westmoreland assured the young standout that he was a shoe-in for a scholarship at West Point. Politifact among other things pointed out that West Point offers appointments, not scholarships. Well, yeah, but if someone offers you a full free ride of no tuition, room and board included, and an annual stipend, you could be forgiven for thinking of it as a scholarship. Especially since even West Point calls it a scholarship.

Can the Chief of Staff of the Army guarantee an appointment to West Point? Technically, no. But he’s the Chief of Staff of the Army. Let’s just say he knows a guy that can get things done.

The services like to tout the number of people that apply to the academies, versus the number they select, as a means of showing what top notch schools they are.

To gain an appointment to the academy, you must first secure a nomination. The normal route is to write to your Congressional representative and Senators.  The Vice President also has nominations to offer. But so does the Secretary of the Army. And recall the Carson was in high school ROTC at the time. There are special provisions for those students to secure nominations.

Applicants currently enrolled in an Army Junior or Senior Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program or an ROTC program from another branch of service that has been designated as an Honor Unit with Distinction are eligible for a nomination in this category. A request for a ROTC Nomination should be made through your Professor of Military Science or Senior Instructor who must fill out and submit a Request for ROTC Nomination (Form 5-497) to the Director of Admissions, U.S. Military Academy.

In the end, focused on becoming a doctor, Carson never actually sought a nomination nor applied to USMA. He instead applied to and was accepted at Yale.

As some folks were quick to point out to me this weekend, something like 10,000 people will seek a nomination to West Point, but only something like 4000 will be nominated. But the numbers are a tad misleading. Around 10,000 people annually ask for the information packet to seek a nomination and application. In fact, only about half those people will actually submit the packet. The acceptance rate is far, far higher than any of the academies would like to admit.

Let me tell you how easy an academy nomination is to get. I got one. Your humble scribe, at the time, wasn’t even assured of graduating high school. But we received a nomination to Annapolis.  In fact, we never asked for one. The first we heard of it was when our NJROTC instructor called us into the office to inform us that the Secretary of the Navy had nominated us for the Naval Academy. It had never actually occurred to us to even try for Annapolis. But with the nomination in hand, we began the process. What stumped us was the essay part of the application. Why do you want to attend the Naval Academy? With no good answer coming to mind, we quickly realized that we would be a poor fit, and so declined to actually apply.

Similarly, in our first year of active service, we were invited to apply for the Preparatory School for West Point. Again, with no burning desire to attend West Point (and the thought of spending five years in an academic setting not at all appealing) we declined.