The “officer class” were upper crust, didn’t need to go to any military academy, had an upper crust education, and were expected to know “how to lead” 
It worked for centuries, after all. Until it didn’t.
As for civil service (invented by the advanced culture of China, see below for dates) third-world countries have always found patronage works well enough for hiring and promotion, that and bribery.
I think these Lt. Colonels were appointed at the garbage-strewn intersection of the wreckage of American meritocracy for both the civil service and the military.
I think I’ll break into a new version of “Tradition! “
Niyad — we used to be better than this in the modern world, and proud of it.
* The concept of selecting officials by merit rather than by birth began to be used in China as early as the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), but the modern written imperial examination system for civil service was formalized during the Sui Dynasty (581–618 CE). This system became fully developed under the Tang and Song dynasties and provided a merit-based pathway for entering the bureaucracy for nearly 1,300 years, lasting until its abolition in 1905.
Apologies that I am using the so-called AI Overview that popped up, but it accords with my memory of my studies. The Chinese did it first, by a very long shot. But by the time they dropped it in 1905, their empire had rotted and was ripe for revolution in a big way. Let that be a lesson to the rest of us.
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