\n<\/p>\n
President Trump praised the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for canceling an awards ceremony for actor Tom Hanks\u2014though The Washington Post <\/em>reported that the West Point Association of Graduates, not the institution, made the decision. <\/p>\n \u201cOur great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks,\u201d Trump posted Monday on Truth Social, his social media website. \u201cImportant move! We don\u2019t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!\u201d<\/p>\n It remains unclear why the alumni association canceled the ceremony and whether that means Hanks won\u2019t ever receive the award. The group and West Point didn\u2019t respond to Inside Higher Ed<\/em>\u2019s requests for comment Tuesday. The Post <\/em>reported that retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, the alumni association\u2019s president and chief executive, told faculty the cancellation allows West Point to \u201cfocus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win.\u201d<\/p>\n Hanks was set to receive the association\u2019s annual Sylvanus Thayer Award this month. The association\u2019s June announcement said the award is given to citizens \u201cwhose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in West Point\u2019s motto: \u2018Duty, Honor, Country.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hanks, a two-time Academy Award winner, played soldiers in the films Saving Private Ryan<\/em> and Forrest Gump <\/em>and was one of the executive producers of the World War\u00a0II series Band of Brothers <\/em>and The Pacific<\/em>. In the announcement, the association further praised him for\u2014among other support for soldiers and veterans\u2014advocating for the WWII and Dwight D. Eisenhower memorials in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n \u201cTom 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,\u201d Robert A. McDonald, chair of the association\u2019s board, said in the announcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Trump praised the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for canceling an awards ceremony for actor Tom Hanks\u2014though The Washington Post reported that the West Point Association of Graduates, not the institution, made the decision. \u201cOur great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[12604,2208,12606,8369,928,12605,6558,2286,81,2187],"class_list":{"0":"post-20496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-alumni","9":"tag-award","10":"tag-axing","11":"tag-hanks","12":"tag-lauds","13":"tag-org","14":"tag-point","15":"tag-tom","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-west"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}