Removal of Duty, Honor, Country From the Mission of the United States Military Academy

The Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, LTG Steve Gilland, has issued a letter announcing the change of the Mission of West Point:

Duty, Honor, Country is foundational to the United States Military Academy’s culture and will always remain our motto. It defines who we are as an institution and as graduates of West Point. These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history.

Our responsibility to produce leaders to fight and win our nation’s wars requires us to assess ourselves regularly. Thus, over the past year and a half, working with leaders from across West Point and external stakeholders, we reviewed our vision, mission, and strategy to serve this purpose. We believe our mission binds the Academy to the Army – the Army in which our cadets will serve. As a result of this assessment, we recommended the following mission statement to our senior Army leadership: To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation.

Both the Secretary of the Army and Army Chief of Staff approved this recommendation…

Excerpt

This was also announced in a Board of Visitors presentation here: [ link ], Slide 8.

This has elicited a lot of feedback from other USMA grads. What exactly does “Build” mean? Why the change from an officer career focus to lifetime of service to Army and Nation?

But the most meaningful change is the removal of the commitment to “Duty, Honor, Country.” We have seen many reactions like John T Reed’s (posted via email, pardon any formatting errors):

Seriously? The words “Duty Honor Country” were on the cover of Time once. Why? it was the caption on a photo of Oliver North admitting he lied in the Iran-Contra hearings. Those words are the motto of West Point. They are in the West Point crest which was on the front of our hats at West Point.

Did Lying Oliver graduate from West Point? Au Contraire. He graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD the same day I graduated from West Point (6/5/68), although he entered Annapolis two years before me. Slow learner. The coat of arms, or seal, of the United States Naval Academy consists of a hand grasping a trident, a shield bearing an ancient galley ship coming into action, an open book (representing education), and a banner with the motto \”Ex scientia tridens,\” meaning \”From knowledge, seapower.\” .

When I was an officer in the Army in ranger and Vietnam, I often used those words to recenter myself when I was in some very difficult situation. When I go to court or to a deposition, I use them to remind me of what should guide each of my under-oath answers.

Will West Point grads like this change? Hell, no! Does the West Point superintendent care what grads think? Not one damned bit. He would not have done this if he did. I met him at our 55th reunion last May. We were in front of his house when he returned to it and he joined us for a photo. He looks the part and, at least then if not now, talked a good game.

The origin of this is apparently the Progressive Caucus and their puppet Commander in Chief. They are replacing “Duty Honor Country” with “Army Values.” I know what duty, honor, and country mean. Army values? Signing false documents, sucking to the guys who write your efficiency report, attending “command performance” parties, claiming disability before you retire, affirmative action, rooting out white supremacists in the Army? I would prefer eliminating Duty, Honor, Country to replacing them with “Army values.” Sound a bit reminiscent to the German Army requirement to swear loyalty to Hitler. Army values is the Olive Drab Deep State, a bureaucracy.

The oath we took to enter West Point and to graduate from it got it right: To protect and defend the Constitution. Duty, honor, and country are consistent with that oath. “Army values” sounds like an loyalty oath to the bureaucracy that is the US Army. Indeed, here is a quote: ‘The general added that \”Army Values include Duty and Honor, and Country is reflected in Loyalty, bearing true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers.\”’ .

I wrote an article on loyalty as a value. It is about loyalty among football coaches, but about 98% of it also applies to Army officers. Superintendent Gilland needs to read it. A superintendent worthy of the position or the West Point ring he no doubt wears, would have resigned his commission rather than agree to this. The word careerist comes to mind. Here is the definition of that word: ca·reer·ist DEROGATORY adjective a person whose main concern is for professional advancement, especially one willing to achieve this by any means. http://www.johntreed.net/fttloyalty.html .

The West Point Association of Graduates is located on the military post at West Point. I have described that as not an association of graduates, but rather as a public relations department of the US Military Academy, a government agency. This will be a test of whether the AOG is about graduates or about flacking for the Supe. I think there is a 100% probability that the AOG will support the Supe. That is whom THEY are LOYAL to. Not the values embodied in the words of the Corps, the Alma Mater, or the former mission.

If they behave as I just predicted, or even if they refuse to comment, we grads should start a REAL association of graduates, off campus and off script—an association that represents our experience and perspective and that criticizes USMA when it deserves to be criticized. At present, AOG’s guiding principle is that the Supe can do no wrong. That, fellow grads, is a lie—dishonorable. . There is no way we grads should be supporting, or even remaining silent in the face of, such dishonorable behavior.

John T Reed

Many other senior grads, with career levels reaching up to General officers, in correspondence we can’t publish here, were equally displeased. The consensus seems to be that removing Duty, Honor, Country is accommodating the destructive leftist element in national leadership.

Others not even in the military agree that the look is bad:

One can’t complain they haven’t made it very clear that the US Army officer corps is no long [sic] concerned with duty, honor, or least of all, country.

Vox Day, https://voxday.net/2024/03/14/no-honor-in-the-us-military/

Now, the Mission has not always had “Duty, Honor, Country” in it. And changing it is within the Supe’s authority. And there are other important things to focus on in righting the Academies.

On the other hand, commitment to the Army Values is commitment to whatever the organization deems expedient [link]. The values have changed over the decades, from the ’80s:

The four enduring Army values articulated in 1981 were:

Loyalty to the Institution. … implies recognition that the Army exists solely to serve and defend the nation.

Loyalty to the Unit. … a two-way obligation between those who lead and those who are led; an obligation to not waste lives, to be considerate of the welfare of one’s comrades, to instill a sense of devotion and pride in unit-to the cohesiveness and loyalty that meld individuals into effective fighting organizations.

Personal Responsibility … the individual obligation to accomplish all assigned tasks to the fullest of one’s capability; to abide by all commitments, be they formal or informal; and to seize every opportunity for individual growth and improvement. This value also requires of each of us a willingness to accept full responsibility not only for our own actions, but also for the actions of those in our charge.

Selfless Service. … to the nation in general, and to the Army in particular, requires each of us to submerge emotions of self-interest and self-aggrandizement in favor of the larger goals of mission accomplishment, unit esprit, and sacrifice.10

What if West Point’s mission was graduates committed to “Loyalty to the Institution”? “Loyalty to the Unit”? Whiles these have been changed to the current LDRSHIP set, we see it would be quite easy to change Army Values to completely invert Duty, Honor, Country. And the Left’s hallmark is inversion and subversion of morals. This seems like a solid first step to that end.

When someone thinks of West Point, they think of Duty, Honor, Country. The Army Values are not what West Point is known for. To understand the new mission, you’d have to look up the Army Values and understand them. This is obfuscation of what should be a very clear statement of purpose.

So let us not forget that language is important, that it shapes minds, attitudes, and morals. Removing the moral center of the mission of USMA and replacing it with second-level bureaucratese was done intentionally.