Conservatives are upset that the U.S. Military Academy—West Point—has removed the phrase “Duty, Honor, and Country” from its mission statement.
The phrase comes from a farewell address that retired general Douglas MacArthur—who attended West Point from 1899 to 1903—delivered to West Point cadets in 1962. The old mission statement was first formally adopted by the Academy in 1998.
The change was announced in a letter from West Point superintendent Lieutenant General Steven Gilland. The new mission statement 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 service to the Army and Nation.”According to the U.S. Army, its values are loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage.
But are these all the values of the U.S. Army or are there others that the Army dares not mention?
There certainly are, and they are not so nice.
After 20 years of observation and writing about the U.S. Army, I know all too well what Army values really are:
- Sexual assaults of other servicemen
- Doing the government’s dirty work
- Making widows and orphans
- Killing civilians and dismissing it as collateral damage
- Engaging in offense and calling it defense
- Reciting vile and filthy cadences
- Watching pornography
- Swearing profusely
- Drinking too much
- Taking drugs
- Patronizing brothels
- Blindly following orders
- Fighting unjust and unnecessary foreign wars
- Invading and occupying countries
- Helping to carry out a reckless, belligerent, and meddling U.S. foreign policy
- Policing the world
- Going where American soldiers have no business going
- Maiming and killing foreigners who never threatened any American
- Helping to create terrorists, insurgents, and militants
- Pretending to defend our freedoms
- Fighting wars that are not constitutionally declared
- Obeying immoral orders
- Taking body parts from the enemy as trophies
- Serving as the president’s personal attack force
- Destroying foreign industry, culture, and infrastructure for no good reason
- Neglecting their families to go on overseas deployments
- Traveling the world, meeting interesting people, and then killing them
I think that about sums up Army values.
Unfortunately, sometimes these values lead to U.S. soldiers losing their family, suffering a traumatic brain injury, getting PTSD and not being able to sleep at night or hold down a job, having limbs or genitals blown off, dying in vain and for a lie, or committing suicide.
