WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) 鈥 鈥淒uty, Honor, Country鈥 has been the motto of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point since 1898. That motto isn鈥檛 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 (96 kilometers) north of New York City recently reworked the one-sentence mission statement, which is updated periodically, usually with little fanfare.
The school's 鈥淒uty, Honor, Country,鈥 motto first made its way into that mission statement in 1998.
The new version declares that the academy's mission is 鈥淭o 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.鈥
鈥淎s we have done nine times in the past century, we have updated our mission statement to now include the Army Values,鈥 academy spokesperson Col. Terence Kelley said Thursday. Those values 鈥 鈥 are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage, he said.
Still, some people saw the change in wording as nefarious.
鈥淲est Point is going woke. We鈥檙e watching the slow death of our country,鈥 conservative radio host Jeff Kuhner complained in a post .
Rachel Campos-Duffy, co-host of the Fox network鈥檚 鈥淔ox & Friends Weekend,鈥 that West Point has gone 鈥渇ull globalist鈥 and is 鈥淧urposely tanking recruitment of young Americans patriots to make room for the illegal mercenaries.鈥
West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland said in that 鈥淒uty, Honor, Country is foundational to the United States Military Academy's culture and will always remain our motto."
鈥淚t defines who we are as an institution and as graduates of West Point,鈥 he said. "These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history.鈥
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."
