What matters is how every West Point graduate serves the U.S. Army with integrity and professionalism to embody and model “Duty, Honor, Country.”
In the last lecture for the USMA Class of 1972, four-star General and non-grad, Melvin Zais put it more eloquently. GEN Zais said West Pointers instill the Honor Code in the Officer Corps like a single drop of ink shades an entire pitcher of water.
An Officer Corps that will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do – earns the trust of soldiers and citizens. If that Officer Corps prepares and serves to win in combat with courage and competence, then West Pointers’ service to the Nation is “well done.”
So, did my Class of 1972 serve as such? With one exception, I think “Yes.” How will the Class of 2022 serve? I don’t know.
So much has changed, that I’m clueless about what is really what in the Corps of Cadets and among recent graduates serving in the Army. Change is inevitable. Obviously, change can be good or bad. If change had come as glacially slow as it did from 1922 to 1972, I could speak with some confidence about cadets and graduates in 2022.
But, step-function and exponential changes from 1976 to the present preclude any prognostication on my part. Making West Point, as an institution formerly focused on producing men for the combat arms of the Regular Army, into a school compatible for women, adjusted to a massive cheating scandal, without the 4th Class System and its systemic hazing, taught by a more civilianized faculty, and sprinkled with Woke Identity Politics and Critical Race Theory – creates a transformed place.
Transformed for better or worse? I don’t know.
Consider the measure of success for the initial cadet and military training and plebe (freshman) year. Formerly, success was how many cadets quit. Now, success is how many cadets stay. Fundamentally, that difference creates opposing philosophies, attitudes, and actions.
When I taught in the Department of Social Sciences (1981-1984), I concluded that the particulars of the four year internship for the profession of arms didn’t matter – if high quality young people were recruited, if they thought they had passed a high bar of challenge, and if they were dedicated to the Honor Code and service as soldiers. I was impressed favorably by the cadets I knew in the early 80s.
That may still be true. I’d like to see the data on what West Pointers are doing for the Army.
Is there a qualitative difference between West Pointers and other junior officers? As in success rates in Army schools, promotions, selections to key duties, etc.? Is there a normative perception about the West Pointers’ integrity, discipline, devotion to duty, and courage? What is the retention rate for West Pointers to stay in service?
Also, I wonder about the difficult to quantify aspects of identity as a West Point class and as an Army officer. My class went outside and stood in ranks in all weather 18 times a week to march into the mess hall and eat together at assigned tables. Eighteen times a week. My 24 company mates roomed together with three juggles in room assignments a year – for four years. That’s close, close company (pun intended). We had class six days a week and mandatory chapel on Sunday.
It was a total institution – like prison. And, it changed our identities. Classmate meant far more than any former friendship. Shared identity lead to the same effect in the Army where comrades became brothers in arms.
I think I see differences now. I don’t recall any portraits or plaques to cadets for being cadets, like the first “pick your permanent class of protected persons” to do X,Y,Z – other than the monument to cadets killed in aviation training. I recall only a handful of rites of passage that merited ceremony – usually marked in named parades that we had to march in. Today, it seems cadets get participation celebrations for themselves.
So, did how did my class matter to the Army? We helped make the armed mob that came out of Vietnam into the victorious Army of Desert Storm, the flexible Army of the 90s world-wide deployments, and the determined Army for the early part of the long grind in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It was a thankless job to rebuild the Army. A lot of classmates punched out after our mandatory service. Yet, for those who stayed, it was extremely rewarding to see improvements in combat effectiveness – and serve with the good soldiers who made it happen.
If there’s one new ceremony to add to the many at West Point, I’d like to have old grads give a small punch bowl or flagon with a flaming drink to pass on to cadets to keep “the fire in the belly.”
The Army created the Nation. The Army guarantees the survival of the Nation. The Army serves the American people. West Point must serve the Army in a distinguished way – especially imbuing the honor code in all officers – or close it down.
West Point must be the living heart of “This We’ll Defend.” Hope the Class of ’22 says the same in 50 years.
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You are definitely asking the same questions many of old grads are asking.
I’d like to see the answers. Thanks.
My memory may not serve, but as a member of the Class of ’83, I think I may have had you as one of my P’s. You ask the same questions many of us ask. Unfortunately, I also think we all know the answers. WP is not the same and not in a good way. I am ashamed and angry to admit that one of my classmates has his hands dirty in muddying up WP, the current Supe Daryl Williams. Not good. I am currently not Proud to Be.
I taught ’84 U.S. Government. If you took SS 372, Public Administration in 82-83, 83-84, then I was your P. Hope you have recovered.
The report from my classmates at the 50th – I was on authorized absence with pneumonia – was the Supe was a cheerleader, given the volume and vapidness of his talk, and sees the old grads as an ATM.
Our questions go to the mission – which is integral to the defense of the Nation. If we lose a battle – again – or a war, I don’t want it to be the Army’s fault. Losing should be the purview, even though it sucks, of the politicians, not the warrriors. The Army is Ultima Ratio Regum as an instrument of foreign policy, not as the Commander-in-Chief.