Ah for sure.....it is not just cream that floats to the top!
Think back to an old boy from our Air Force named Dugan....got hisself fired by George's Father after he gave away the Gulf 1 battle plan to the press. A complete Teewat.
As far as ego is concerned....dear old Douglas MacArthur probably eclipsed even Montgomery in the end. That is up till Harry Truman tied a can to his tail and sent him home from Korea.
During my time, Westmoreland was the absolute example of how an inbred promotion system can work to the disadvantage of the military. Read his book and see how he indicts himself in his own words. The section where he went to LBJ and asked for "165,000 more troops or there will be no chance of winning the war", only to be told it wasn't politically feasible. Westmoreland put hand to cap and went back to Saigon and continued in a losing strategy.
Westmoreland knew his next job was as Chief of Staff of the US Army and he was going to do nothing to jeapordize his getting the top job in the Army.
It took a real war fighter, Creighton Abrams, to turn it around by making a stategy chance from body count to destruction of logistical assets.