This fall will start the first full academic year the military service academies will be under President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27, 2025, executive order, " Restoring America’s Fighting Force." The order mandates that, “United States Service Academies …shall be required to teach that America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.”

The young men and women opting for the rigors of the service academies, followed by a minimum of five years in the military, know for what they are volunteering. They don’t need the trite patriotism of Trump’s executive order.

My West Point class of 2000 didn’t need it as we served in Iraq and Afghanistan. My father’s class of 1972 didn’t need trite patriotism when they started West Point in 1968 as Vietnam raged. My

See Full Page