“The MacArthur Society proposes, if there is a change in Presidential Administration in January 2025, that a new Borman-like Commission blue ribbon panel be appointed to determine what needs to be restored, reformed, improved, and retained for West Point to serve the needs of the Army.”

By James Atticus Bowden ’72

The MacArthur Society supports any Administration or bi-partisan legislative effort to restore, reform, and improve West Point to meet the needs of the Army and the Nation for the rest of this century.

The MacArthur Society doesn’t presume to know all the specifics or the depth and breadth of the issues at West Point. We can’t get the officials at West Point to do their legal duties to respond to our FOIA requests.

We believe an intellectually honest, deep dive, investigation is needed for every aspect of West Point. We know much is being done rightly. We know the Corps of Cadets is not the problem. The Cadets are a remarkable group of motivated young Americans.

The MacArthur Society’s concern isn’t about the 85 to 95% of all things “USMA” which are going great. It’s the fact that a 5% issue, if it is a cancer, is deadly.

Failures in the Honor System, race-based admissions, the Cultural Marxism of DEI and CRT evident in teaching and inculcated in the fabric of the Academy are deadly cancerous tumors.

The 1976 USMA Cheating Scandal was shockingly large, but still was a very small part of the Corps of Cadets. Yet, when Borman Commission investigated, it determined there were much larger problems – especially in the command culture.

Consequently, the MacArthur Society proposes, if there is a change in Presidential Administration in January 2025, that a new Borman-like Commission blue ribbon panel be appointed to determine what needs to be restored, reformed, improved, and retained for West Point to serve the needs of the Army.

Since there are like problems at USNA and USAFA, we’ve worked weekly with STARRS and the Calvert Task Group to propose a “Joint Borman Commission 2.0”.

This past week we drafted a Presidential Executive Order to order a Special Commission on the Service Academies should a president choose to do so. We are hopeful the administration will support the idea of a Special Commission on the Service Academies enthusiastically.

If a Presidential Executive Order to establish a Special Commission is signed on January 21, 2025, then 30 to 60 days later a professional staff of contractors and government employees will be funded and stand up. The Secretary of Defense will appoint the Blue Ribbon panel. And, the Special Commission gets busy to complete their work in 300 days.

Our working title is the “Duty, Honor, Country Commission.”

The MacArthur Society’s proposal includes a draft schedule to accomplish the tasks assigned in 300 days.

Several reviews by significantly-sized advisory councils of retired officers and subject matter experts are planned. We call this “Councils of Colonels and Generals”, but they’re not restricted to Colonels and Generals. These councils would include Old Grads of every stripe, retired non-Grad officers and enlisted soldiers, scholars, and distinguished interested persons.

STARRS and Calvert Task Group will put together the same groups with their Service perspectives. These would be all day or day and half exercises in death by PowerPoint followed by small group discussion. Much of it may be by Zoom. No compensation will be offered.

“As it is intuitively obvious to the casual observer” (Math Department’s “Green Death” Calculus books), everything above is contingent on all the dominoes falling in line.

You can help the Duty, Honor, Country Commission.

• Name persons of national stature for the Blue Ribbon panel.
• Name persons who can participate in the advisory councils.
• Volunteer to help write the preliminary “staff study” notebooks which could be given to the Presidential Transition team. We will provide direction for what needs to be researched and written.

You can help your MacArthur Society by getting more Grads and all other interested supporters to subscribe to our website and this newsletter to keep abreast of how our efforts proceed.

You can contact the MacArthur Society via our Contact Form.