The West Point Association of Graduates (WPAOG) publishes the West Point Magazine every quarter and distributes copies to its graduates. On the surface, it is a nice gesture to keep the alumni of West Point informed about goings on at USMA. Each issue opens with a note from the President/CEO of WPAOG, and the West Point Superintendent, Commandant, and Dean. This issue focuses on sports (Army had a great season again in football) and technological innovation for the 2050 battlefield. It also talks about branch night for the cadets, the triathlon team, Rhodes Scholars, construction at West Point, and AI in the education curriculum. As always, it closes with a remembrance of recently deceased graduates. The priorities of West Point and the AOG are listed in the table of contents and are arranged in importance by order and size.

The four highlighted stories on the first page with the largest font size are:

“Army West Point Football: A Good Year”

“West Point 2050: How the U.S. Military Is Preparing for Future Conflict”

“Embracing the Future: West Point’s Integration of AI in Education and Warfare”

“Endurance Builds Champions and Leaders: West Point Triathlon Team”

Of note, at least the AOG and West Point don’t mention diversity as they have incessantly in just about every publication since 2021.

Football – this topic seems to dominate almost everything you see on the USMA home page, magazines, and AOG emails to grads (shaking them down for money for the football team and their new stadium).

Triathlon – again, West Point’s lopsided emphasis on sports teams.

Future conflict and AI articles – emphasizing high tech instruction via new buildings/computer centers, new education plans for technology, and wonderment regarding machines and technology the cadets are learning with.

Like USAFA and USNA, all 3 of the major US military academies just got a dressing down by the SECDEF to get rid of DEI that has consumed the academies’ focus and instead focus on warfighting. SECDEF Pete Hegseth even released this screenshot on his X page:

LTG Gilland has been under fire from Congress and concerned USMA grads and the public regarding an unnatural focus on DEI, destruction of the Honor Code, and removal of Duty, Honor, Country from West Point’s mission statement. There is significant turmoil afoot at West Point. All is not well as the Superintendent declares in his letter in the Winter 2025 West Point Magazine.

West Point’s focus on preparing cadets for the 2050 battlefield discusses technology, quick thinking, and AI. It does not mention the greatest strengths that West Point graduates bring. The timeless, powerful ‘edge’ that USMA graduates have been world renowned for in wars around the world for over 200 years (until recently of course). The articles and LTG Gilland’s note don’t mention the bedrock of Honor upon which everything a cadet is to become is built on. It doesn’t mention the essential character qualities of Duty, Honor, Country. Gilland does mention a quote from the past SECDEF Lloyd Austin regarding the motto, but it is a tangential mention sandwiched in his bragging about West Point’s sports programs, Rhodes scholars, and construction.

Technology, AI, ‘agility’ to adapt to battlefield conditions mean nothing if a graduate does not have a rock solid, unquestioning, absolute allegiance to the concept of Honor. Grads from any school can have a great sports program, have flashy new computer labs built, and can play with robot AI dogs as they explore new technologies. None of these make West Point special. None of these make West Point worth the extreme cost to the taxpayers. Otherwise, the Army football team is the most expensive football team in the NCAA by far (except for the other two service academies of course) with little else to show for what makes West Point unique, essential, and worth existing.

The writer for the 1985 Tristar Pictures Rambo: First Blood Part 2 ‘got it.’ This exchange in the movie between Rambo and Murdock in a room full of then high tech computers illustrates it perfectly.

Murdock:  Rambo, you can feel totally safe because we have the most advanced weapons in the world available to us. (motioning to a room full of expensive military computers and monitors)

Rambo:  I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon.

Murdock:  Times change.

Rambo:  For some people.

*For those who haven’t seen the movie, Murdock lies and abandons Rambo in Vietnam and Rambo digs deep and ‘wins’ anyway.

In 1962, MacArthur captured the essence of West Point in his immortal “Duty, Honor Speech to the cadets. Key excerpts from the speech follow:

“You now face a new world, a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres and missiles marked the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind – the chapter of the space age. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a greater, a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier…And through all this welter of change and development your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars…Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.”

*MacArthur was successful in command in WW1 and WW2

West Point’s leaders haven’t won a major war since WW2. Recent ‘esteemed’ graduates like GEN (Ret) Petraeus and GEN (Ret) McChyrstal were losing generals in 2 wars, misled the country, and were fired for lying/obstruction of justice and insubordination respectfully. West Point has done none of the ‘introspection’ that is mentioned in the West Point magazine for why its leaders haven’t solved the drug problem, haven’t fixed the Honor Code (USMA’s crown jewel), have succumbed to the lies of DEI, and whose recent general officer graduates have established a new culture of losing wars and cashing in on the riches of the Military Industrial Complex.

Football trophies and cool computers don’t win wars. Leaders bound by Honor and servants to the motto Duty, Honor, Country win wars.

Once again, LTG Gilland and the AOG think football trophies and flashy construction projects and robot dogs can distract from the real and frightening problems at America’s oldest military academy. Maybe he thinks he can spend his way out of the hole he has dug himself and distract graduates with ‘cool, flashy’ things. We are not fooled. We are not impressed.

LTG Gilland needs to figure it out soon.