President Trump’s actions on Monday to Make America Great Again probably invited some unkind thoughts from the Long Gray Line. The old grads may have noted that our 45^th and 47^th President graduated from a high school equivalency course at the neighboring New York Military Academy (where fictional mobster Tony Soprano dispatched his wastrel son AJ) rather than the elite environs of West Point, where Mr. Trump summarily fired its august Board of Visitors. In the best spirit of inter-service comity, he also dismissed similar boards at the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and even the Coast Guard Academy.

In case you were wondering why, President Trump promptly posted the answer on social media. “Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years…We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”

While academy boards of visitors have seldom been considered as hotbeds of revolutionary sentiment, the well-informed military journal Stars and Stripes pointed out, “Historically, the president appoints six members to each board for three-year terms, while the speaker of the House selects four, the vice president selects three and the House and Senate armed services committees choose one each. (But) In 2021, Biden dismissed 18 Trump-appointed members of the boards, six each at West Point, the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy.”

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-02-11/trump-fires-service-academy-boards-16795113.html

Just like the Army-Navy Game, turnabout is often fair play at the service academies, including sometimes heavy-handed control over their highly prestigious appointments. So two weeks into his new term, Trump undoes what Biden put in place: What’s the big deal? Well, just last week, the New York Times reported that, “The U.S. Military Academy…has ordered 12 officially sanctioned clubs for women and ethnic or racial groups to shut down immediately…(The) academy’s deputy commandant, Chad R. Foster, said that the clubs were being disbanded “in accordance with recent presidential executive orders, department of defense guidance and department of the Army guidance.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/west-point-clubs-women-minorities.html

While it is impossible to know just how far Mr. Trump intends to push his post-DEI agenda, there is clearly something to be said for his efforts to rebuild American defenses in the face of growing international challenges. Our Army is much too small by any objective measure: but so too are the Navy and the Air Force, all three services confronting the common dilemma of aging capital fleets. As Elon Musk may shortly tell us as well, that common nightmare includes an industrial base and procurement system which may have to be rebuilt from scratch, probably under desperate time constraints. Surrounded by desperation on so many fronts, maybe it is time for President Trump to try his hand at re-creating the bipartisan consensus on defense that sustained us throughout the Cold War.

If so, then maybe West Point offers a way to begin. As a former Vietnam-era draftee, I never thought my military career would lead me there. But a mid-1970’s West Point cheating scandal serendipitously opened a coveted faculty position. Against very long odds, I was encouraged to attempt another dream: this one for an Army-sponsored graduate program at Harvard. I eventually completed my doctorate and arrived at West Point with a formidable education but still a non-grad, i.e, someone who had not himself been a cadet.

Shortly thereafter, the academy’s leadership decided that “non-grad” had a pejorative ring, settling on a new title: Graduates of Other Fine Institutions. It worked well until someone noticed the new acronym of GOOFIES! But being a GOOFIE didn’t stop me from directing an inter-disciplinary, inter-department course, or from re-organizing and running its principal guest-speakers program (e.g, Rev. Benjamin Hooks, James Michener and Alex Haley); or coaching the Cadet Model UN Club to several inter-collegiate championships). In short: my academy experience taught me the value of collegial, cooperative, servant-leadership, where you followed the Doctrine of No Suprises and the leadership had your back, GOOFIES or grads alike!

My former faculty colleague, COL (Ret.) Fred Black, is a distinguished soldier appointed by President Obama to sit on the Board of Visitors. Working with both Trump and Obama appointees, he remembers, “I can’t recall any friction at all. The Presidential appointees were all tied to USMA and asked the leadership tough questions. We also attended more meetings than the congressional members.”

With the West Point model in mind, Mr. President, I respectfully suggest that you follow a similar strategy in restoring a warrior culture understood better there than anywhere else!

COL (Ret.) Ken Allard is a former member of the West Point faculty, Dean of the National War College and NBC News military analyst.