#west point

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Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez (19 February 1983 – 12 September 2006) was an African-American military officer. After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Second Lieutenant Perez was serving in the Iraq War when she was killed in action by an improvised explosive device. She became the first black female officer in U.S. military history to die in combat and the first female graduate of West Point to die in Iraq.

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🏈 Did you know that before becoming a five-star general and the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower took the field as a football player at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point?

In this historic photo from 1912, Eisenhower is captured kicking a football, showcasing the discipline and teamwork he carried throughout his life. While an injury cut short his football career, his time on the field undoubtedly shaped his leadership and determination. 📸: Dwight Eisenhower kicking a football at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, 1912.

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7671055

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Congressman Davy Crockett's Resolution to Abolish the Military Academy at West Point

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of RepresentativesSeries: Bills and Resolutions Originating in the HouseFile Unit: Bills and Resolutions Originating in the House of Representatives, 21st Congress

1. Resolved that if the bounty of the government is to be at all bestowed the destitute poor and not the rich influential are the objects who most claim it and to whom the voice of humanity most loudly call the attention of Congress.

2. Resolved that no one class of the citizens of these united states has an exclusive right to demand or receive for purposes of education or for other purposes more than an equal and ratable proportion of the funds of the national treasury which is replenished by a common contribution and in some instances more at the cost of the poor man who has but little to defend than that of the rich man who seldom fights to defend himself or his property.

3. Resolved that each and every institution calculated at public expense and under the patronage and sanction of the government to grant exclusive privilidges except in consideration of public services is not only aristocratic but a down right invasion of the rights of the citizens and a violation of the civil compact called the constitution.

4. Resolved further that the Military academy at west point is subject to the foregoing objections in as much as those who are educated there, receive their instruction at the public expense, and are generally the sons of the rich and influential who are able to educate their own children while the sons of the poor for want of active friends are often neglected or if educated even at the expense of their parents or by the liberality of their friends are superceded in the service by Cadets educated at the west point academy. Resolved therefore, and for the foregoing reasons that said institution should be abolished, and the appropriations annually make for its support, discontinued.

No 7.

Mr. Crockett

Abolish West Point Academy

February 25 1830

Laid on the table

(630)

Crockett 33. to [illegible]

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Army is really upping the trash talk for the game today 😂😂

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In Defense of Southern Heritage!

Matt Walsh Defends our Heritage!

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One day at West Point, 1838

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April 2025: As an unasked-for service to the U.S. Department Of Defense (for whom I used to work, briefly, back in the very late 1980s, and so am therefore obligated to help out where I can); I am hereby supplying the next month's worth of military #blackhistory biographies, that seem to have been inexplicably misplaced on a handful of public-facing DoD websites. Having been both an HTML instructor and a web developer, I totally get how these kinds of errors can happen --certainly it's nothing sinister or deliberate. But until such time as the DoD can get its ducks back in a row, I humbly offer this space as a substitute repository of such information.

Accordingly we begin with the life of Henry Ossian Flipper, the first Black man to be commissioned in the U.S. Army and also the first Black cadet to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in 1877.

Born enslaved in 1856 Georgia, Flipper's earliest years were working in a wood shop with his father, himself a skilled shoemaker and carriage-trimmer. After the Civil War he pursued his education, first at Missionary Schools and then at Atlanta University (today known as Clark Atlanta University) in 1869. His dream, however, was to attend West Point. Determined to make every conceivable effort, he wrote to his state Congressman, James C. Freeman, asking for an appointment. After some back-and-forth exchange of correspondence with Rep. Freeman, to his great surprise, he secured his appointment and was inducted in 1873, along with four other African Americans. He was the first to graduate as a member of the Class of 1877, though his time at West Point was of near-total social isolation due to his race. One of his first posts as a newly-commissioned second lieutenant was with the 10th Cavalry (the famed "Buffalo Soldiers") at Fort Sill, Oklahoma --this was also significant as Flipper was the first-ever Black officer to command regular troops. (Previously the all-black regiments such as the Buffalo Soldiers had been commanded by white officers.) The unit later served with distinction (if one may call it that!) in 1880, against Chief Victorio and his Apache warriors.

Unfortunately Flipper's career later took a downward turn in 1881, while he served as quartermaster in Fort Conchon, Texas: a nearly $2,000 discrepancy was discovered in disbursed commissary funds, and Flipper attempted to pay the shortfall out of his own pocket. Despite this ill-advised effort (and even with his fellow troops contributing their own funds to what smelled like a setup), the discrepancy was still discovered by his superiors and Flipper was court-martialed, receiving a Dishonorable Discharge in 1882. He remained in the region and established himself as an Indian translator and also as a surveyor, working for the Department of Justice's Court of Private Land Claims, even providing expert testimony in several land grant court cases. He later became special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, from 1921 to 1923. He pursued a brief mining career in Venezuela, but returned to the U.S. in 1930. Over the course of his life he published two memoirs, "The Colored Cadet at West Point (1878)" and "Negro Frontiersman: The Western Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper" (published posthumously in 1963). Both publications are regarded as definitive, indispensable accounts of life on the frontier from the vantage point of a Black man.

The U.S. Army reviewed and corrected Flipper's case to an Honorable Discharge in 1976, concluding that his 1882 discharge was unnecessarily harsh. President Bill Clinton formally pardoned Flipper in 1999.

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Princess Grace and Prince Rainier during their visit to West Point, USA, in 1956.

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The Great Eggnog Riot at West Point Military Academy | Tasting History with Max Miller

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West Point Buffalo Soldiers, 1920s

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Tiger Tuesday: The tiger for today's "Tiger Tuesday" is on the drum of a perhaps dejected drummer in Princeton's 1982 Bric-a-Brac. On October 17, 1981, Princeton University Band was not allowed to play at the halftime show for the Princeton-Army football game at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on the basis of what officials said were offensive performances in the prior few years. The band's perspective, as stated here, was that "nothing is sacred." However, the primary critique of the band was its heavy reliance on sexually suggestive humor, and disapproval came from many quarters.

The entire Tiger Tuesday series

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The club did amazing at the U.S. Military Academy Invitation this past weekend!! Earning two bronze medals, our 10 competing fencers killed it!!

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One afternoon in 1838 three cadets unwittingly crossed paths, not knowing what fate and destiny had in store for each of them. All they knew was that as cadets, they were honor bound to fulfill their duty to the country as best as they could.

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We are all guardians of Democracy

The West Point class of 2024 graduated at Michie Stadium yesterday.  President Joe Biden was the graduation speaker.  Biden did not use his speech to the cadets, as presidents have done before him, to announce any new foreign policy doctrines or policy objectives, but rather, as the New York Times reported today, “The president used the moment to suggest a sharp contrast with Mr. Trump.”.

Biden reminded the graduating cadets of their solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution: “On your very first day at West Point, you raised your right hands and took an oath not to a political party, not to a president, but to the Constitution of the United States of America,” Biden told the cadets. “Nothing is guaranteed about our democracy in America,” he added. “Every generation has an obligation to defend it, to protect it, to preserve it, to choose it. Now it’s your turn.”

Biden quoted from a letter written in 2020 by West Point alumni to the graduating class of that year.  The letter was put together by Donna Matturro McAleer, a 1987 graduate of West Point who has spent years working for women’s rights and equal opportunity for women in the military.  I played a role in the letter, reading an early draft and making suggestions, and I was a signatory to the letter, along with 12 members of my class, 1969.

Biden asked the class of 2024 to “Remember what over a thousand graduates of West Point wrote to the Class of 2020 four years ago: The oath you’ve taken here, quote, ‘has no expiration date,’ they said. Not for you, not for your country. It’s important to your nation now as it’s ever been. Keep it, honor it, and live it.”

Donna and I and the more than a thousand West Pointers who signed that letter are proud that it lives on in the words of President Biden’s address to the class of 2024. We wrote, “The oath taken by those who choose to serve in America’s military is aspirational. We pledge service to no monarch; no government; no political party; no tyrant. Your oath is to a set of principles and an ideal expressed in the Constitution and its amendments. Our Constitution establishes freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of religion, of equal protection under the law regardless of race, color, or creed.”

Thank you, President Biden, for reminding us that these words are as true today as when we warned four years ago, “When fellow graduates fail to respect the checks and balances of government, promote individual power above country, or prize loyalty to individuals over the ideals expressed in the Constitution, it is a travesty to their oath of office.”

Especially today, we cannot take for granted our freedom and our commitment to defend it.  West Pointers learn, when necessary, to defend our Constitution with rifles.  But we can all defend it with our votes.  As President Biden told the class of 2024, we are all guardians of Democracy. This is our country. It’s up to us to keep it and honor it.

Lucian Truscott Newsletter

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