Despite that and several references to his seemingly less than stellar intellect he received an award for Academic Excellence upon his graduation from the Air Force Academy as a Second Lieutenant. (SG1: "Zero Hour")
That said, I've gone over the transcript, and cannot find a verbal reference. It may have been prop canon. The MGM background that would have been part of the writer's bible for the show mentions that he is an Academy grad. The Vietnam ribbons are also just prop canon. I suspect that this is one of those cases where TPTB were lazy and never reconciled the background that they wanted to give him, including Vietnam experience, an Academy degree, black ops background, time in as a test pilot (also mentioned in his MGM bio, and substantiated by his flying the experimental X-302 in Redemption, which would not have been allowed if he were not experienced) with what is actually possible. They also waffled enough with Jack's age ('52 is prop cannon in Entity, and contradicts when he tells Kynthia that he is 40 during the first season) that it has spun off a huge fandom debate on the subject.
Tl;dr - I think you can chose the way you want to go with this. My head canon is he spent more time and attention on sports than academics in high school and had no particular college ambitions, so her couldn't claim a student deferment and was drafted into Vietnam, chose the Air Force in the hope that he could avoid dying in the jungle somewhere, did something Jackishly heroic that got him an extremely non-standard nomination to the Academy (Maybe he saved the life of a Senator's son, and was offered one favor and used it wisely, because he figured he'd like giving orders better than taking them?) and being an adrenaline junkie, became a test pilot, switching to black ops when Sara begged him to do something, anything other that that!.
Poor Sara. I don't imagine she had it easy even before Charlie died.
I believe I have read that he needs a graduate degree in order to make colonel, and a PhD in order to make General, although I'm betting that there are exceptions made for exceptional needs or exceptional backgrounds that might account for Jack making general, and not being recommended for separation because he had spent too long at the grade of colonel. As a rule the military requires that an officer continues to progress up the ranks, and too long in grade can be grounds for separation. They are periodically reviewed, and their superiors need to recommend them for promotion, retention, or separation.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 16 May 2014 08:15 pm (UTC)That said, I've gone over the transcript, and cannot find a verbal reference. It may have been prop canon. The MGM background that would have been part of the writer's bible for the show mentions that he is an Academy grad. The Vietnam ribbons are also just prop canon. I suspect that this is one of those cases where TPTB were lazy and never reconciled the background that they wanted to give him, including Vietnam experience, an Academy degree, black ops background, time in as a test pilot (also mentioned in his MGM bio, and substantiated by his flying the experimental X-302 in Redemption, which would not have been allowed if he were not experienced) with what is actually possible. They also waffled enough with Jack's age ('52 is prop cannon in Entity, and contradicts when he tells Kynthia that he is 40 during the first season) that it has spun off a huge fandom debate on the subject.
Tl;dr - I think you can chose the way you want to go with this. My head canon is he spent more time and attention on sports than academics in high school and had no particular college ambitions, so her couldn't claim a student deferment and was drafted into Vietnam, chose the Air Force in the hope that he could avoid dying in the jungle somewhere, did something Jackishly heroic that got him an extremely non-standard nomination to the Academy (Maybe he saved the life of a Senator's son, and was offered one favor and used it wisely, because he figured he'd like giving orders better than taking them?) and being an adrenaline junkie, became a test pilot, switching to black ops when Sara begged him to do something, anything other that that!.
Poor Sara. I don't imagine she had it easy even before Charlie died.
I believe I have read that he needs a graduate degree in order to make colonel, and a PhD in order to make General, although I'm betting that there are exceptions made for exceptional needs or exceptional backgrounds that might account for Jack making general, and not being recommended for separation because he had spent too long at the grade of colonel. As a rule the military requires that an officer continues to progress up the ranks, and too long in grade can be grounds for separation. They are periodically reviewed, and their superiors need to recommend them for promotion, retention, or separation.