It was clear to me that many Naval Academy graduates and senior officers did whatever it took to please their bosses. Such sycophants taught me one of the most important lessons I learned from my Vietnam experience: there will always be people who pursue power by ingratiating themselves with those in power without pausing to assess the goals of those leaders. I came to understand this as a POW, but I have witnessed it in all institutions ever since: corporations, bureaucracies, schools, churches, you name it.

—Robert Wideman, Unexpected Prisoner: Memoir of a Vietnam POW, 2016.