I have been pretty hard on clueless Army Secretary Christine Wormuth during the year and a half I've been scribbling here. When you see her as the ballerina atop the melting, gooey, sticky sundae that is the current state of the United States Army itself, you realize the decline is thanks to the intrepid leadership of decades of Milleys and Austins in the upper echelons. Wormuth didn't build the failing base her wokeness happily pirouettes on. She's just making sure there's enough syrup running down the sides to thoroughly cover the formerly solid underpinnings an increasingly corporate Army brain trust had already started melting.

A letter from LTG Steve Gilland went out Monday to U.S. Military Academy cadets and supporters. It started out really strong, as one would imagine a note from West Point's 61st superintendent would. Inspiring even.

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. These three hallowed words are the hallmark of the cadet experience and bind the Long Gray Line together across our great history

Right up to the next paragraph, where he summarily drops the"foundational" and "hallowed" three words from the West Point mission statement without actually saying so.

The U.S. Military Academy will no longer use the motto "Duty, Honor, Country" in its mission statement, according to West Point's superintendent. MORE: https://t.co/41coaSbUkV pic.twitter.com/f0zEjxPOfw

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) March 13, 2024

He simply presents the revised statement and says everybody who had to bought off on it.

POOF

The letter and his expressed reasoning don't make a lick of sense on their face, nor does what then seems to be a cheerleader's barking before his sign-off.

Dude, why bother?

If you have any idea what's been going on with the Army, and particularly with West Point for the past decade or so, it all makes perfect sense. As someone said on X, they're now replacing hardcore values with variables. Duty, honor, and country become "we already covered all that." 

...The phrase, which was highlighted in a famous speech by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1962, will be replaced by a line that includes the words, "Army Values."

...The general added that "Army Values include Duty and Honor, and Country is reflected in Loyalty, bearing true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers."

And let's not get bent out of shape over something that's only a couple of decades old.

...Gilland made a point to say that West Point's mission statement has changed nine times and that "Duty, Honor, Country was first added to the mission statement in 1998."

As for variables, what are the "Army values" that the superintendent seems to think are so clear cut every soldier adheres to - and keep in mind, cadets are not soldiers yet. Are "Army values" fungible? Transmutable, where duty, honor, and country are immutable?

What is more important for potential officers in the infancy of their careers to absorb, particularly in an era fraught with social landmines and shifting loyalties? Bedrock principles to carry through their career...or concepts?

Focus on deleting “the values of Duty, Honor, Country” and substituting “the Army Values.” 

Ask any serving soldier or retiree to pop off to “How many Army Values are there?” Or, “Name the Army Values!” <Crickets> 

Follow up with “Who determines the Army Values?” When and how? Who defines them? 

You and your befuddled soldier/retiree buddy can find the seven Army Values on the Army website along with the Warrior Ethos, Soldier’s Creed, NCO Creed, Ranger Creed, and the unforgettable Army Civilian Corps Creed. 

The Army Values include Duty and Honor, but omit Country. They add Loyalty, Respect, Selfless Service, Integrity, and Personal Courage. They are one and all admirable values. 

But, the Army Senior Leaders made a serious mistake. They invert the fundamental relationship of West Point to the Army. 

West Point isn’t a reflection of the Army on any given day. It isn’t just another liberal arts college officer commissioning source. 

West Point is the cradle for Army values as the formerly monastic, professional school for soldiers. It’s the castle keep for maintaining the Army values to keep the Army’s promise to the American People - “This We’ll Defend.” The seven Army Values are an expansion of what West Point brings to the Army for most of our Nation’s history from its motto “Duty, Honor, Country.”

The Army Values come from West Point.

Spenser Rapone didn't happen in a vacuum five years ago. 

He happened at West Point, which was already shifting from a military academy preparing officers to a university model. He was accepted to the academy, knowing who and what he was, and was fed fuel for his fires there. West Point was already well on its way to woke. These emails to Rod Dreher are from 2021.

...As a USMA grad, the commissioning source of Spencer Rapone [the Communist graduate — RD], I saw more focus on a divisive ‘woke’ agenda rather than preparing us for battlefield leadership...

...I am grateful for my experiences at West Point, but I will only do five years.  My father, a career Army officer, and I have advised my two younger siblings not to attend West Point and avoid military service.  I’ve had conversations with junior enlisted paratroopers about attending West Point, and I’ve told them not to go if they are the slightest bit Christian, conservative, or demonstrate traits which might be considered as ‘toxic masculinity’ or reinforcing ‘the patriarchy’.  And if they do go to USMA, not to take Russian as their foreign language.

...The US Army and West Point are more concerned with woke rather than fighting wars. We will not win wars, and it is going to take a lot of dead or badly maimed military personnel in the public view make that clear.  I have no wish to die over Taiwan or Ukraine, which is ever more likely given our push to police the world and the lack of warfighting training across the Army.

And much of what they predicted has happened.

...Actual hardened warriors rarely reach the top ranks (see Sen. Grassley’s ending a promotion of a SEAL for alleged middling discourteousness to a civilian, one of many examples).

So, the military will resemble the Brown faculty lounge: bloated, entitled, overcompensated, contemptuous of the common man, failing at basics, but well-versed in and subservient to every bad trend under the sun. And will continue to receive $700 bn/ yr. to persist.

And so it does, with "white rage' discussions, Air Force colonels complaining about hiring "too many white pilots," deriding fellow officers as "the biggest barriers" for being blind to "institutional racism" while pushing CRT, etc., ad nauseum.

Hell, yeah - it's any faculty lounge in America right now, and God help the troop or lone level-headed zero who bucks the mean girls by the coffee machine.

"Gender stereotypes" were also really starting to get the hard push in 2021 (again, H/T to Rod Dreher). The military wasn't "fair" to women because empathy wasn't a measurable metric, and the US should worry about "compliance with international law" among other complaints.

Major gender gaps persist in the U.S. armed forces, negatively impacting operational effectiveness, military culture and compliance with international law, according to a report released by the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security.

The report, Culture, Gender, and Women in the Military: Implications for International Humanitarian Law Compliance, examines gender inequality in the U.S. armed forces, in particular as it relates to U.S compliance with international law, and suggests that failing to ensure women’s meaningful participation impedes operational capacity, geopolitical partnerships and prospects for lasting and legitimate peace.

The United States is obligated to ensure the meaningful participation of women in its armed forces to fulfil the “participation” pillar of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda, initiated in 2000 with the adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325. Limiting the meaningful participation of women also undermines compliance with the U.S.’s non-derogable obligations under international humanitarian law, as codified in the Geneva Conventions. 

Yet women make up only 16.5 percent of overall military personnel. Participation differs greatly between the branches of the military, with the Marine Corp posting participation rates under 10 percent. The numbers decline markedly at senior levels, with only five women having reached the four-star level. 

Another college study on something the academics have no basic concept of to begin with, much like the Air Force now outsourcing its strategic plan to McKinsey.

What - us worry? Nobody at USAF HQ read this report two years ago.

Global consulting giant McKinsey & Co.’s work with both the Pentagon and powerful Chinese state-owned enterprises poses a potential risk to national security that federal agencies can no longer ignore, lawmakers and critics say.

McKinsey’s consulting contracts with the federal government give it an insider’s view of U.S. military planning, intelligence and high-tech weapons programs. But the firm also advises Chinese state-run enterprises that have supported Beijing’s naval buildup in the Pacific and played a key role in China’s efforts to extend its influence around the world, according to an NBC News investigation.

Yes. We're screwed.

Fast forward a mere three years with a progressive in the White House. We have drag queens doing Navy ads, transgenders in senior positions, plummeting enlistments, morale at all-time lows, and an Army secretary who openly sneers at the so-called "warrior caste" whose generations of veterans felt a duty to honor their country.

Biden's Army Secretary Doesn't Want 2nd Gen Military Recruits for Fear of a "Warrior Caste". Her plans seek to draw in people who have no real connection to the military and to broaden the appeal of service. ⁦~ @Sultanknish⁩ https://t.co/Qt37d7fgye

— Ginny (@ginthegin) July 13, 2023

Duty, honor, country - they seem so quaint. And in the Pentagon faculty lounge these days...well...they're downright offensive.

You just know it won't be any of their kids on that floating suicide barge off Gaza.

Every Hamas guy is going to think this is some sort of plot. Good luck to whoever is deployed to operate the dock.

— Patrick Abbott, Author (@PatrickKAbbott) March 7, 2024

That's today's "values."

Go, Army, GO!