The U.S. Military Academy no longer will use the motto “Duty, Honor, Country” in its mission statement, according to West Point’s superintendent.
The phrase, which was highlighted in a famous speech by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1962, will be replaced by a line that includes the words, “Army Values.”
Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Randy George both approved the change, which critics may see as West Point going woke.
“Our responsibility to produce leaders to fight and win our nation’s wars requires us to assess ourselves regularly,” Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland wrote in a letter to cadets and supporters on Monday.
“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.”
Gilland explained that the new mission statement “binds the Academy to the Army.”
“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,“ he wrote.
Gilland made a point to say that West Point’s mission statement has changed nine times and that “Duty, Honor, Country was first added to the mission statement in 1998.”
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.”
The academy’s previous mission statement was: “To educate, train and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the nation as an officer in the United States Army.”
“The general closed by telling the cadets, ‘In the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country,'” DeSoto wrote.
“Hopefully, the same will be true for today’s West Point cadets, even with ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ no longer in the mission statement.”