On \u200bMarch 7, Superintendent Steve Gilland announced a planned change to \u200cthe official mission<\/a> of the\u200c U.S. Military Academy\u2063 at West Point: eliminating the words \u201cDuty,\u201d \u201cHonor,\u201d and \u201cCountry.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is impossible\u200c to overstate the reverence with which those three\u200c words have \u200bbeen held at West Point, in the\u200b entire Army, and throughout the \u2062U.S. military. In \u200chis 1962 farewell \u2064address<\/a> to \u2064the West Point Corps of Cadets,\u200d Gen. Douglas\u200c MacArthur encapsulated their meaning for American soldiers:<\/p>\n

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Duty, Honor,\u200b Country \u2014 those three hallowed words, reverently\u2062 dictate what you ought to be,\u2062 what you can\u2063 be, what you will be. They are your rallying point<\/a>\u2064 to build courage when courage\u2062 seems \u200dto fail, to \u2062regain faith when there seems to be little cause\u2063 for faith, \u200dto create hope \u200dwhen hope becomes forlorn.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
MacArthur graduated\u200b from West Point \u2062in 1903. By that time, \u201cDuty, Honor, \u200bCountry\u201d was already recognized as the official West Point \u2063motto.\u2064 Among many \u200cother \u2063locations, it is on the\u200b West Point crest that is on every graduate\u2019s class ring. It\u2064 remains the\u2063 standard for military professionalism.<\/p>\n
This is the presentation\u2062 LTG Gilland gave\u200d to the Board of Visitors on March 7, about\u200c the change:<\/p>\n
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Everything \u2014 planning, training, execution \u2014 is compelled by a military unit\u2019s \u2063defined mission. The\u200d more simply it can be stated, the better.\u2064 My favorite example is the mission the Combined Chiefs of Staff \u200bgave \u2063to Gen. \u200dEisenhower<\/a> in\u200c 1944:\u00a0\u201cEnter the continent of Europe and, \u200cin \u200dconjunction with\u2063 the other\u200c United Nations, undertake operations aimed<\/a> at the heart of Germany and the destruction of\u2063 her armed forces<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
The West Point \u200b mission statement<\/a> tells all its faculty and staff, exactly what they must \u2064do\u2062 in training \u2062new officers. \u2062It defines the professional purpose for their existence.<\/p>\n
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Blowback and\u200b the Hasty Release of the\u2062 New\u2064 Mission<\/strong><\/h2>\nThe change first \u200dmade news last \u2063week in a short article in\u2064 the Armed Forces \u2063Press<\/a>. On March 11, \u200bit\u200d was publicized<\/a> by \u200dthe MacArthur \u2064Society<\/a> \u2063\u2014 a group of West Point graduates concerned \u2064about West Point\u2019s decline. \u200cIts president, Bill Prince<\/a>, is a\u200c West Point \u2064graduate and decorated\u200d CIA veteran \u200bwho attended the Board of Visitors meeting where the change was announced. <\/p>\n
As\u2064 news of the change began to spread, the initial \u200creaction by many was that it was fake news. It had to be\u200d fake news because \u201cDuty, Honor,\u200b Country\u201d\u200b is so fundamental to West Point\u2019s core identity, and it was\u200c inconceivable \u200bthat anyone would excise it from the official\u2063 West\u200c Point mission statement. \u200bI spoke \u200dwith several people at West Point who said the decision had not yet been finalized and West\u2062 Point might even seek congressional \u2064approval. Later in the day, likely because of the emerging blowback, Gilland sent a letter<\/a> \u2062to all West Point graduates announcing the\u200b change \u200chad\u200c been implemented.<\/p>\n
An officer with whom I\u2062 spoke emphasized\u200d the change\u2064 was the result of a\u2062 regular review of the\u2063 mission statement \u200cto see if\u2063 any changes were needed to\u200b \u201cmodernize\u201d it. LTG Gilland\u2019s letter \u200cmade the same point and noted that the mission statement has been changed nine times in the past 100 years. Such changes are sometimes necessary. For example, shortly after women were first admitted\u2063 as cadets in 1976, the \u200bmission statement was modified\u200d to make it sex-neutral.<\/p>\n
Although I \u200bbelieve his decision was wrong, I do not\u2062 believe the \u2063superintendent intended to diminish the\u200c centrality of the \u200bWest Point motto. LTG \u200cGilland is \u200ca patriot, \u2062and I believe he has the \u200bbest interests of West Point and the country \u200bat heart. His chief spokesman, Col. Terence Kelley, \u200demphasized that when he told me, \u201cGreat young men and women are \u2062graduating from West Point to\u200b lead \u2062soldiers on the battlefield. That<\/em> is what we \u200bare focused on.\u201d <\/p>\n
<\/div>\nHowever, many West Point graduates perceive \u2062this most recent change to\u2063 the mission language not as a\u200b necessary \u2063step of modernization, but as another \u200bwoke\u2064 attack on tradition. There have been all too many of \u200cthose, both at West Point \u2063and throughout the country. For\u200c example, Robert E.\u200b Lee\u2019s name was removed<\/a> from West Point\u2019s Reconciliation \u2062Plaza, which had commemorated Lee\u2019s contribution to the reconciliation of\u200b opposing forces and people after the Civil War. \u2062The irony of removing any reference to Lee from a memorial\u2063 to reconciliation apparently escaped the perpetrators \u200cof the purge. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, given\u200b what \u2063we have\u2064 learned about \u201cpoliticization of the curriculum,\u201d \u201cthe erosion of the\u200b honor \u200bcode,\u201d and \u201crace and gender-based admissions\u201d \u2064\u2014 which the MacArthur Society\u200b \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superintendent Steve Gilland announced on March 7 a significant change to West Point’s mission, removing “Duty,” “Honor,” and “Country.” These words held immense significance at West Point, in the Army, and across the U.S., underlining the depth of their reverence within these institutions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2993,"featured_media":2204095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/dave-lowe-zYVO25eyBVo-unsplash-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2204094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/dave-lowe-zYVO25eyBVo-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2993"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2204094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2204094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2204095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2204094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2204094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2204094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}