Compass Points - Duty, Honor, Country

Hold on to what is most important.

Compass Points - Duty, Honor, Country

Hold on to what is most important.

March 13, 2024

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"Duty, Honor, Country" What does the phrase mean? Is it still important?

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Even before the founding of the United States, the Army and Marine Corps have been friendly rivals in service to the Nation. The Army and Marine Corps have fought the same enemies and bled on the same battlefields. While it is true that when the Naval Academy plays against West Point, Marines say, "Beat Army" while soldiers say, "Beat Navy." Nevertheless, the Army and Marines are bound together in war and peace by deeply held martial responsibilities.

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That is what makes what has happened at West Point so troubling. Recent news reports from the US Military Academy at West Point provide the Marine Corps a terrible warning. The Marine Corps would be wise to learn from what West Point has done and not make a similar mistake.

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First though, a look back in history. In the annals of US warfare there is perhaps no better story of the Army and Marine Corps working together than in Korea in the 1950's. Beginning on June 25, 1950, North Korea’s Korean Peoples Army (KPA) suddenly attacked across the 38th parallel, captured Seoul, and then pushed the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) along with a few UN and US forces the length of the peninsula. Finally, in August with the arrival of more US forces including Marines, a perimeter was established around the port of Pusan at the very tip of the Korean peninsula. In looked like North Korea was about to push the allies into the sea. Something dramatic needed to be done.

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General Douglas MacArthur was rushed to Korea from his post as Supreme Commander Allied Powers - Japan. By 1950 he had served almost 50 years on active duty, more than half of that overseas. MacArthur had graduated top of his West Point class and believed deeply in the West Points motto, "Duty, Honor, Country." To change the course of the fighting, MacArthur came up with his master plan, the landing at Inchon.

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The landing at the port of Inchon was extremely risky. Some say the US Joint Chiefs not only had doubts about the plan, but they also told MacArthur not to land at Inchon.  MacArthur as usual was not deterred. The goal of the Inchon landing was to capture Seoul and then cut the overextended supply lines of the North Korean military. Before that could be done, it was necessary to capture tiny Wolmi Island, which guarded the narrow entrance to the port at Inchon. MacArthur choose Marines to lead the assault. On September 15, 1950, Marines captured Wolmi Island. Marines captured the Inchon waterfront. Marines drove to Seoul. Marines captured Seoul. The North Korean supply lines were cut. North Korean forces retreated up the peninsula in disarray and South Korea was saved.

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A dozen years later when MacArthur gave his final address at West Point, he spoke not of Korea or the other wars and battles he had seen, he spoke of the more permanent things, "Duty, Honor, Country."

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Excerpt from:

General Douglas MacArthur

Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address

. . . Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

But these are some of the things they do: They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

. . . Duty, Honor, Country.

The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training -- sacrifice.

In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him.

However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.

You now face a new world -- a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles mark the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind. 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 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.

Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be:

Duty, Honor, Country.

Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.

Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night:

Duty, Honor, Country.

You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words:

Duty, Honor, Country.

This does not mean that you are war mongers.

On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."1

The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.

But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.

Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country . . . .

I bid you farewell.

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After bidding farewell to West Point with his eloquent speech, General MacArthur would be shocked to learn that today, West Point has removed the words, "Duty, Honor, Country." from their mission statement. Apparently West Points feels the mission statement needs to be updated with modern language instead of old words like "Duty, Honor, Country." It is hard to imagine that in the pursuit of some new idea, West Point would remove and demote, "Duty, Honor, Country."

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It is the old virtues that give a fighting force its strength. It is the old values that anchor a fighting force to its responsibilities.

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Language may change, technology may change, enemies may change, but the most important things never change.

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The Marine Corps today is conducting a Corps wide audit of barracks. Why does this issue incense so many Marines both on active duty today as well as those on active duty yesterday? Fundamentally, the barracks issue is not about budget or black mold, it is about the heart and soul of the Marine Corps. Build brand new barracks, but without Marine leadership that is both caring and demanding, there is no Marine Corps.

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In advanced Marine Corps schools at Quantico, many reports say Marine leaders are discouraged from standing up and speaking out by an administration more interested in narrow conformity than open discussion. Build brand new schools, but without frank and open discussion among Marine leaders, there is no Marine Corps.

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Former Marine Corps leadership said the Marine Corps needed new missile units to sit and wait on defense in the Pacific. Build brand new missile units on defense, but without Marines who always aggressively go to the sound of the guns, there is no Marine Corps.

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The US Military Academy at West Point may rip out the words "Duty, Honor, Country" from their mission statement, but the Marine Corps must never destroy "Semper Fidelis."

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The Marine motto, "Semper Fidelis" means being always faithful to God, family, country, Corps, unit, and self. It also means being faithful to the permanent things, the things that never change. From before the founding of the United States, the Army and Marines have been bound together in war and peace by deeply held martial responsibilities.

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Weapon systems come and go. Tactical plans come and go. Even brilliant strategic plans do not last forever. While change is constant and change can be good, no change should be allowed to damage or destroy the things of deepest importance. No new changes to the Marine Corps can be allowed to risk the heart and soul of the Corps. No new changes can be allowed to risk, Semper Fidelis

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Bravo Blue - 03/12/2024

West Point Deletes "Duty Honor Country" from its Mission Statement

By John A. Lucas

johnalucas6.substack.com/p/west-point-deletes-duty-honor-country

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General Douglas MacArthur

Sylvanus Thayer Award Acceptance Address

Delivered 12 May 1962, West Point, NY

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurthayeraward.html