I don't think dismissing the armys plan because of an over reactivity excursion resulting in the death of three operators was a trivial decision... and while the army engineers go through tough schooling, its not going to have the same focus as the navys nuclear power program... there's plenty of tough schools in the military, for example the defense language program is probably just as difficult as our programs...
Thanks for making my point. Most people don't know much about the Army program other than a little bit about SL-1 if that. There were brilliant minds at work at for the Army, just like the Navy. If you look at some of the pictures of the Army prototypes, they share remarkable similarities to Navy systems and the mimic aids look just like stuff I use everyday.
You can't dismiss the Army program over SL-1, just like you can't dismiss the commericial nuclear program over TMI, Davis-Besse, etc. Obviously the latter examples were different but my point is you recognize weaknesses and make the corrections and move forward.
Also, I don't understand your comment about tough schooling. What does DLI have to do with anything? Are you seriously trying to compare learning nuclear technology with learning a foreign language? Of course there are tough schools across the military, but I was not marginalizing any training program in my attempt to lend credit to the Army.
I am no nuclear history expert, but I am going to hazard a guess and say the Navy and commericial nuclear were influenced by the development and learnings of the Army.