Duty, Honor, Outrage: Change to West Point’s mission statement sparks controversy

“Duty, Honor, Country” has been the motto of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point since 1898. That motto isn’t changing, but a decision to take those words out of the school’s lesser-known mission statement is still generating outrage.

Officials at the 222-year-old military academy 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of New York City recently reworked the one-sentence mission statement, which is updated periodically, usually with little fanfare.

The school’s “Duty, Honor, Country,” motto first made its way into that mission statement in 1998.

The new version declares that the academy’s mission is “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.”