Donald Trump gloated on Truth Social Monday after the Washington Post reported that the alumni association at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point had canceled an award ceremony for the “woke” movie star and veterans advocate Tom Hanks later this month.
“Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks,” the president declared. “Important move! We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!”
But Trump’s post couldn’t erase the fact that West Point Association of Graduates made a big deal in June about plans to honor the “Saving Private Ryan” and “Apollo 13″ star with a prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award at a ceremony on Sept. 25. Since 1958, the group has annually presented this award to an “outstanding citizen” who did not attend West Point but who still has a distinguished record of public service that exemplifies the academy’s ideals: “Duty, Honor, Country.”
In a June 11 statement, the alumni group’s board chairman Robert A. McDonald said: “Tom Hanks has done more for the positive portrayal of the American service member, more for the caring of the American veteran, their caregivers and their family, and more for the American space program and all branches of government than many other Americans.”
The statement also listed Hanks’ extensive support of the military and America’s space program during his five-decade career. In addition to playing U.S. service members in “Forrest Gump,” “Saving Private Ryan,” and “Greyhound,” Hanks also played the late astronaut Jim Lovell in “Apollo 13” and produced the acclaimed World War II-themed miniseries, “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.”
The Bay Area-born Hanks, likewise, praised West Point graduates for choosing him for such an honor, saying “West Point’s legacy of leadership, character, and service to the nation is a powerful example for all Americans. To be recognized by an institution whose graduates have shaped our country’s history through selfless service is both humbling and meaningful.”
Hanks also is known for his extensive advocacy for veterans, according to the alumni group. In 1999, Hanks joined the late Senator Bob Dole, a 2004 Thayer Award recipient, as a national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. In 2015, the actor also lent his support to Dole’s fundraiser to create the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC, and he served as national chairperson of the D-Day Museum Capital Campaign.
In 2017, former Senator Elizabeth Dole created a Caregiver Champion Award named for Hanks as part of her Elizabeth Dole Foundation, which supports military and veteran caregivers and their families. She also tapped Hanks to chair her foundation’s Hidden Heroes campaign, saying that the actor “certainly lives up to the criteria of ‘a great American.’”
On social media, many Trump critics argued that Hanks has done more to support the military and veterans than Trump has — as a New York City real estate developer, a reality TV star or even as commander in chief. They also pointed out that Trump, like Hanks, also never served in the military. Trump avoided fighting in Vietnam after receiving deferments five times — four so he could go to college and the fifth because he claimed that he had bone spurs in his heels that later healed.
One person on X declared that the West Point alumni group “capitulated” to Trump because Hanks made it known that he is not a Trump supporter. In 2016, he accepted a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, aligned himself with President Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 and poked fun at MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporters while portraying one in several “Saturday Night Live” skits.
“This is a very sad commentary on our times,” John Allen (Jay) Williams, a political science professor emeritus at Loyola University Chicago and a retired captain in the US Naval Reserve, said on X. “If anyone deserves to be recognized for service to military people it is Tom Hanks.”
“Tom Hanks in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ changed the way my generation viewed military sacrifice,” wrote a self-described father and Dodgers fan. “Meanwhile all (Trump) ever did was call them suckers and losers.”
Jason Dempsey, an Army veteran who graduated from West Point and taught there as an active-duty officer, told the Washington Post said he had heard “zero public outcry” about Hanks receiving the award. He also said he believes a “vast majority” of alumni and current cadets support him receiving it.
Trump supporters, on the other hand, celebrated the alumni group’s decision, saying the president “is absolutely correct” because Hanks is “a woke liberal.” Others said that his politically conservative “Forrest Gump” co-star Gary Sinise, also a veterans advocate, would be more deserving.
The alumni group’s decision to cancel the ceremony was revealed in an email that retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, the group’s president and chief executive officer, sent to faculty on Friday, the Washington Post reported.
Not surprisingly, Bieger said nothing about the group being under pressure from Trump’s White House to not honor Hanks. He said that more vaguely that cancelling the ceremony would allow the academy “continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,”
In apologizing for the ceremony’s cancellation, Bieger didn’t say if Hanks would still receive the award in some other format.
The Washington Post said the ceremony’s cancellation follows a number of changes at West Point and other military academies since Trump’s return to power. In January, Trump issued an executive order calling for a rollback of programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the armed forces, saying leaders, curriculums and instructors at all of the U.S. service academies should be scrutinized. Other changes that have followed include the cancellation of some classes and disbanding numerous “affinity groups” for cadets, such as the National Society of Black Engineers and Latin Cultural Club.
West Point also recently rehung a 20-foot portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate who fought to preserve slavery for the Confederacy, in its library, the Washington Post also said. The artwork also features an enslaved person guiding Lee’s horse in the background. It was put in storage in 2022 at the direction of a congressionally mandated commission that examined what to do with images, symbols, names, monuments and other items that commemorate the Confederacy.