By Lt Col. Keith Self, US Army ret, USMA ’75
Current Member of Congress serving the Texas 3rd District
The Colonel Sylvanus Thayer Award is West Point’s top accolade, reserved for the finest exemplars of the motto of West Point: Duty, Honor, Country.
This year’s Thayer Award is slated (September 19, 2024) to be awarded to Barack Obama, a man who has very little in common with duty and honor.
As Commander in Chief, Barack Obama foisted his spending addiction on American taxpayers, fractured communities with his divisive domestic policies, and bounced from one avoidable geopolitical crisis to another.
The watershed of consequences facing our country nearly a decade later continue to seriously compromise America’s national security and position of power.
Not only is Barack Obama an unsuitable recipient for this esteemed award, his nomination was nonsensical from the very start.
Bestowing this honor upon him in the midst of a divisive national election undermines both the Thayer award and everything West Point stands for.
Barack Obama reduced the defense budget year after year, diverting federal funding priorities towards helping illegal aliens and socializing healthcare.
It is a slap in the face to the preeminent leadership academy for the best and brightest service-minded Americans to coronate a former president whose cutbacks and failures weakened America’s global standing.
I graduated from West Point in 1975, embarking on what would become a twenty-five-year journey as an Army officer. My alma mater instilled in me an unwavering commitment to excellence and integrity.
Defending our great nation requires more than tactical skill, a sharpshooter’s keen eye, being swift afoot, or knowledge about military tactics.
Of course, these things help, but to meet the physical and mental strains of leading troops into battle, soldiers know that prioritizing our national interests over personal or political gain is paramount.
West Point taught me to adhere to the highest standards of professionalism and ethics, not to succumb to the fickle tides of politics.
Hence the reason for my speaking out against the nomination of Barack Obama.
This year’s recipient does not detract from the valuable lessons in leadership I learned during my time at West Point and carried with me throughout my career.
But it dooms future generations of Army leaders at a time when our military struggles to meet recruitment missions and navigates destructive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion mandates. It’s the final frontier for radical culture wars.
This is part and parcel of a concerning trend I’ve observed in our armed services over the course of my career and since entering the public service as a Member of Congress, but I (perhaps naively) assumed culture warriors would leave West Point alone.
Barack Obama’s contempt for American values is the most basic disqualifier of all.
But his destruction of alliances and friendships with partner nations—that our military relies on to carry out missions against our adversaries—adds fuel to the fire.
For example, shortly after his inauguration Obama removed Sir Winston Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office. Obama perceives Churchill as an imperialist who imposed British colonialism across the globe. While Obama is entitled to his personal view of arguably the greatest European statesmen in modern times, his action highlighted his radical ideology and served as a symbolic slap to the face of the United Kingdom, one of our greatest allies.
Initially, I voiced my concerns discreetly within the West Point community. I felt profound alarm by the potential to jeopardize the legacy of the Corps of Cadets.
Barack Obama’s nomination stands in stark contrast to the most recent winners since 2017: the Honorable Elizabeth Dole, Kenneth Fisher, Doctor Mae C. Jemison, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, General Ann Dunwoody, the Honorable Leon E. Panetta, and President George W. Bush.
These leaders embody Duty, Honor, Country in a variety of ways and are a well-deserving cast of recipients. They embodied the exact principles West Point teaches us to honor: America’s history, American values, and the heart and grit of the American nation.
Instead of portraying these sage principles, Barack Obama instead projected weakness to the world by going on an apology tour across Europe and the Middle East. Our adversaries took note and now both regions are engaged in devastating drawn out conflicts.
Beyond just the Thayer Award, looking at the big picture makes our current situation even more critical.
Barack Obama and his protégé Joe Biden are two of the weakest leaders in American history.
By promoting Marxism disguised as progressivism they initiated policies leaving America with poor returns.
Rather than politicizing this prestigious award, we should preserve its sanctity.
The case against Barack Obama makes itself.
I implore my fellow West Point graduates to stand boldly to preserve the integrity of “our rock-bound highland home” that we hold in such high regard.
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