West Point Ditches "Duty, Honor, Country" From Mission Statement

The United States Military Academy has removed the words “Duty, Honor, Country” from its mission statement, a move approved by Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Randy George.

The previous mission statement read:

“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 new one reads:

“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 professional excellence and service to the Army and Nation.”

Regarding the change, Newsmax.com reports West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland said the new statement (which took a year and a half to create) “binds the Academy to the Army.”

“Our responsibility to produce leaders to fight and win our nation’s wars requires us to assess ourselves regularly,” Gilland wrote.

“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 pointed out the academy’s mission statement has changed a total of nine times, with “Duty, Honor, Country” being added in 1998.

Nevertheless, he emphasized 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.”

1989 West Point grad Randy De Soto notes in The Western Journal that new cadets had to memorize the portion of General Douglas MacArthur’s 1962 speech (given at the school) which highlighted the three words:

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

News of the mission statement change wasn’t very well received on X: