Army Cadets Mission Statement Revised, ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ Removed

Conservatives have long warned of a leftist influence within the U.S. military that has resulted in a lowering of standards and the indoctrination of “woke” social ideology, combining to reduce the capabilities of American servicemembers.

The latest news to spark such criticism came from the Army, which has reportedly updated its mission statement for cadets to remove the famous “values of duty, honor, country.”

The phrase, which traces its lineage to a speech delivered more than a century ago by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to a class of cadets following his service in World War I, has been replaced by the broad term “Army values.”

Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland announced the change in a message to the West Point military academy, stressing that the branch’s new goal is to “build, educate, train and inspire.”

Although he claimed “duty, honor, country” remained a “foundational” tenet of the Army’s culture, he said that “leaders from across West Point and external stakeholders” spent more than a year reviewing the mission statement and decided on the recent change. The new language, Gilland confirmed, was approved by both the secretary and chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

“Our absolute focus on developing leaders of character ready to lead our Army’s Soldiers on increasingly lethal battlefields remains unchanged,” he concluded.

While military leaders have attempted to downplay the omission, Army Ranger veteran Will Thibeau — who leads the Claremont Institute’s American Military Project — said it could have wide-reaching implications.

“On the surface, this change is a benign semantic tweak from leadership,” he said. “In reality, this is a rhetorical revolution in West POint’s culture. ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ are foundational commitments, instilled by General McArthur, that transcend time and culture. The Army Values now in the mission statement have undergone constant revisions since 1986, only formally codified in 2012. ‘Values’ are subjective cultural preferences that, for the Army, while important concepts, were the product of corporate consulting and endless bureaucratic revision.”

He went on to question the rationale of allowing West Point cadets to obtain degrees in subjects such as “diversity and inclusion studies” while erasing a fundamental part of the Army training ethos. 

“The change to the motto is legitimately concerning, and Americans should ignore the military’s effort to sanitize the moment in which we find ourselves,” Thibeau concluded.