Is West Point Going Woke? Academy Drops ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ From Mission Statement, Keeps It as Motto

WEST POINT, New York — “Duty, Honor, Country” has been the motto of the United States Military Academy at West Point since 1898. That motto isn’t changing, but a decision to take those words out of the school’s lesser-known mission statement is still generating outrage.Officials at the 222-year-old military academy 60 miles north of New York City recently reworked the one-sentence mission statement, which is updated periodically, usually with little fanfare.The school’s “Duty, Honor, Country,” motto first made its way into that mission statement in 1998.The new version declares that the academy’s mission is “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.”“As we have done nine times in the past century, we have updated our mission statement to now include the Army Values,” an academy spokesman, Colonel Terence Kelley, said Thursday. Those values — spelled out in other documents — are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage, he said.Still, some people saw the change in wording as nefarious.“West Point is going woke. We’re watching the slow death of our country,” conservative radio host Jeff Kuhner complained in a post on the social media platform X.The co-host of the Fox network’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Rachel Campos-Duffy, wrote on the platform that West Point has gone “full globalist” and is “Purposely tanking recruitment of young Americans patriots to make room for the illegal mercenaries.”West Point’s superintendent, Lieutenant General Steve Gilland, said in a statement that “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,” he said. “These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history.”Colonel Kelley said the motto is carved in granite over the entrance to buildings, adorns cadets’ uniforms and is used as a greeting by plebes, as West Point freshmen are called, to upper-class cadets.The mission statement is less ubiquitous, he said, though plebes are required to memorize it and it appears in the cadet handbook “Bugle Notes.”

Is West Point Going Woke? Academy Drops ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ From Mission Statement, Keeps It as Motto

Is West Point Going Woke? Academy Drops ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ From Mission Statement, Keeps It as Motto

More from the New York Sun

London Records Revisits the Pop Videos That Turned 1980s Hits Into High Art

New Eurovision Rule Could Block Israel From Hosting Competition

Warsh Revives a Classic Approach to Central Banking

Pentagon Policy Chief Reassures Indo-Pacific Allies but Neglects Korea Ahead of Joint War Games

‘Union County’ Brings Authenticity to an Opoid-Addiction Drama

Scientists Grow High-Protein in Lettuce Using Gene Gun Technology

ACLU Tries To Force FCC To Hand Over Records Related to ABC Early License Renewal Process

Taylor Swift the Latest Victim of Far Left’s Demands To ‘Tax the Rich’

More from the New York Sun

London Records Revisits the Pop Videos That Turned 1980s Hits Into High Art

New Eurovision Rule Could Block Israel From Hosting Competition

Warsh Revives a Classic Approach to Central Banking

Pentagon Policy Chief Reassures Indo-Pacific Allies but Neglects Korea Ahead of Joint War Games

‘Union County’ Brings Authenticity to an Opoid-Addiction Drama

Scientists Grow High-Protein in Lettuce Using Gene Gun Technology

ACLU Tries To Force FCC To Hand Over Records Related to ABC Early License Renewal Process

Taylor Swift the Latest Victim of Far Left’s Demands To ‘Tax the Rich’