Today, being appointed to and attending a US military service academy comes with the obligation and commitment to serve in the military. The military service obligation is set by Congress under U.S. Code Title 10 Chapter 753 - UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY. The law today, states that the cadet "will serve on active duty for at least five years immediately after such appointment". It's a commitment that politicians consider lengthening from time to time as they did in 2019, 1996 and way back in 1837. In 1837, the commitment to serve was not five years active duty but five years total service. It was something that President Martin Van Buren asked Congress to look into. Back then, a cadet could spend "only one year's service in the Army after his education is completed." Van Buren thought the government should expect more. After all, his own son Abraham Van Buren served 9 years active service after graduating from the academy, and then only left to serve with his own father in the White House.
Abraham Van Buren was appointed to West Point Military Academy in 1823 at the age of 15. He graduated as a Second Lieutenant in 1827 and rose to rank of Captain by July of 1836 just a few months before his father became the eighth president of the United States. The younger Van Buren left his commission to become his father's private secretary where he remained until the term ended in 1841. As Commander in Chief and a father of a West Point graduate, President Martin Van Buren understood the value and cost of an education at a U.S. Military academy. In his 1837 State of the Union Address, Martin Van Buren suggested to congress that the U.S. government "ought to command for a longer period the services of those who are educated at the public expense."
"The Military Academy continues to answer all the purposes of its establishment, and not only furnishes well-educated officers to the Army, but serves to diffuse throughout the mass of our citizens individuals possessed of military knowledge and the scientific attainments of civil and military engineering. At present the cadet is bound, with consent of his parents or guardians, to remain in service five years from the period of his enlistment, unless sooner discharged, thus exacting only one year's service in the Army after his education is completed. This does not appear to me sufficient. Government ought to command for a longer period the services of those who are educated at the public expense, and I recommend that the time of enlistment be extended to seven years, and the terms of the engagement strictly enforced."
References
“First Annual Message.” First Annual Message | The American Presidency Project, 5 Dec. 1837, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/first-annual-message-4
https://www.nps.gov/mava/learn/historyculture/abraham-van-buren.htm
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