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West Point Launches Investigation Into Raised-Fist Photo

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By Tony Lombardo. West Point is investigating a photo that shows 16 black female cadets in uniform displaying raised fists outside a U.S. Military Academy barracks.

“We can confirm that the cadets in this photo are members of the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 2016,” said West Point’s director of public affairs Lt. Col. Christopher Kasker in an emailed statement. “Academy officials are conducting an inquiry into the matter.”While many details are unknown about the photo, the image has been shared widely in military circles, with claims the women are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

The raised fist is a symbol associated with Black Lives Matter, although it’s been used for centuries to symbolize resistance by a number of groups, from labor unions to suffragists to socialists to the Black Panthers.

The official Black Lives Matter website describes itself as a “chapter-based national organization working for the validity of Black life. We are working to (re)build the Black liberation movement.” It was created in 2012 following the death of Trayvon Martin. (Read more from “West Point Launches Investigation Into Raised-Fist Photo” HERE)

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Here’s EXACTLY What I’d Do to the West Point Cadets Who Took This Dishonorable Photo

By Allen West. …As reported by the Washington Times, “The United States Military Academy at West Point said Wednesday that an investigation is underway regarding a photograph that shows 16 black cadets in uniform posing with their fists in the air.

In any other times we could possibly just dismiss this as a very stupid move by these 16 female West Point Cadets, future U.S. Army Second Lieutenants. However, in the hypersensitive racial atmosphere created by the liberal progressive left, this has to be considered…and why? It’s simple, the obvious hypothetical question is what if these were 16 white male West Point Cadets from the south who took a picture in uniform with the Confederate battle flag? Yes, you know exactly what the story would be, and it would be plastered all over the mainstream media. And you know those white male cadets would be in serious danger of not graduating and receiving their commission as an Army officer.

So what shall be done, or better question, what should be done with these 16 female cadets who very soon would be leading our most precious asset, American sons and daughters?

Here’s my assessment. These young ladies must understand they’re part of a great lineage, one that began right here in Massachusetts at places like Lexington Green, Concord Bridge, and yes Breed’s/Bunker Hill. The call to arms and the ensuing answer from those men had to do with one thing: individual liberty and freedom. These young women carry on the legacy of Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point. All he wanted was to serve his nation and be an Army officer. Thanks to him, these women can be there at West Point, and I was able to become an Army officer. Someone needs to teach them a little history and get them to understand that lesson and see contriteness in their soul. Being in charge of men and women is not something to be taken lightly and momentary lapses of reason could result in their loss of life. That’s what someone needs to get the West Point 16 to comprehend.

Then they need to make a public statement of apology to their class, and to the United States Military Academy. They worked hard over the past four years to earn that degree and commission, but they need to come the realization of just how stupid their action was…yes, it was stupid. Why? Because the 16 female cadets will be called upon to lead, and leadership isn’t based on color. They’ll be leading Soldiers of all different backgrounds. Right now, you can bet their names are already known throughout the Army. (Read more from “Here’s EXACTLY What I’d Do to the West Point Cadets Who Took This Dishonorable Photo” HERE)

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Abbas’ Fatah Praises ‘Heroic Martyr’ Who Murdered U.S. Veteran

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Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization on Wednesday praised as a “heroic martyr” the killer of West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran Taylor Force, according to an Israel-based media monitoring group.

On its Facebook page, Fatah posted a sketch of a man’s hand holding a knife over a map of “Palestine,” Palestinian Media Watch reported. Across the map is written “Bashar Masalha,” the name of the 22 year-old Palestinian who stabbed Force and 11 others in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area on Tuesday.

Written on the arm of the person holding the knife in the sketch are the words, “the heroic martyr.”

Meanwhile a news report on official Palestinian Authority television stated in part, “A complex operation was carried out in Jaffa, or more precisely in the Jaffa port, by the Martyr – according to Hebrew sources and sources in Qalqilya – Bashar Masalha, 22 … in which 12 settlers were hurt, among them an American tourist who was killed, according to the Hebrew sources.”

Separately, an Arabic-language article on a Fatah website page describes Masalha as a shahid (martyr). It also says, incorrectly, that the man he stabbed to death in the Jaffa “operation” was an Israeli. (Read more from “Abbas’ Fatah Praises ‘Heroic Martyr’ Who Murdered U.S. Veteran” HERE)

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West Pointer Murdered by Palestinian Terrorists in Israel

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2009 West Point Grad Killed in Jaffa Terror Attack

By Tovah Lazaroff. Taylor Force, 29, was killed Tuesday evening by a Palestinian terrorist who went on a stabbing rampage in Jaffa in which 12 other people were wounded.

“This horrific act of violence has robbed our Vanderbilt family of a young hopeful life and all of the bright promise that he held for bettering our greater world,” Vanderbilt chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos wrote in a letter to the student body . . .

According to Force’s LinkedIn profile, he had completed tours of duty with the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After graduating from the US Military Academy at West Point in 2009, he served as a field artillery officer until 2014.

“Taylor was visiting Israel with his classmates in order to expand his understanding of global entrepreneurship and also to share his insights and knowledge with start-ups in Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in a Facebook post. “On behalf of the people of Israel, I send my condolences to Taylor’s family and friends. May his memory be a blessing.” (Read more from “2009 West Point Grad Killed in Jaffa Terror Attack” HERE)

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Cruz: Murder of West Point Grad in Israel Proves Radical Islamists Target Americans and Israelis Indiscriminately

By Michael W. Chapman. In reaction to the murder of Taylor Force, an American from Lubbock, Texas, and graduate of West Point who served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the brutal crime “is grim evidence that the scourge of radical Islamic terrorism targets Americans and Israelis indiscriminately.”

Taylor Force, a 28-year-old MBA student, was visiting Israeli along with other students from Vanderbilt University, to study start-up companies.

He was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist on March 8, reported the Associated Press and other outlets, another victim in a wave of stabbing and shooting attacks by Islamic terrorists against police and civilians. (Read more from “Cruz: Murder of West Point Grad in Israel Proves Radical Islamists Target Americans and Israelis Indiscriminately” HERE)

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West Point Report Describes Islamic State Threat as Crisis 4 Years in the Making

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A new report from the West Point counterterrorism center challenges the notion that the Islamic State only recently became a major terror threat, describing the network’s gains in Iraq as a crisis four years in the making.

Meanwhile, Fox News has learned that top aides to President Obama expect the threat from the organization, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to outlast Obama’s time in office.

The details underscore the challenge facing the U.S. government and its allies as the president and military advisers weigh how — and where — to confront the Islamist militant forces.

“ISIL did not suddenly become effective in early June 2014: it had been steadily strengthening and actively shaping the future operating environment for four years,” the report from the West Point center said.

The report said that the “shattering” of Iraq’s security forces in June is a “case-in-point, the result of years of patient preparatory operations.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Signals Significant Shift in US Foreign Policy at West Point Commencement

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Photo Credit: AP

President Obama, in a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, signaled a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy — one that pulls back from what he described as “military adventures” while wielding American power in other ways.

The president described the new American foreign policy as one of “collective action” and restraint, deploying unilateral U.S. military force only when the American people are threatened. He outlined the approach a day after announcing his plan for gradually drawing down the U.S. force in Afghanistan once the war formally ends later this year.

“The landscape has changed,” Obama told the graduating class at West Point on Wednesday, citing the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The president took on what he described as “interventionists” from both parties, and said that while “isolationism” is not an option, “U.S. military action cannot be the only — or even primary — component of our leadership in every instance.”

The president advised that crises around the world that don’t directly threaten Americans be met first with non-military options: diplomacy, sanctions and “collective action.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Duty, Honor, Country: Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Last Speech to the West Point Corps of Cadets

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…Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

But these are some of the things they do: They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation’s defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion on those who fall; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

They give you a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what next, and the joy and inspiration of life. They teach you in this way to be an officer and a gentleman.

Read more from this story HERE.

West Point Hosts First Marriage Ceremony for Homosexual Men

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Photo Credit: Mike Groll, APTwo West Point graduates were married Saturday in the military academy’s first wedding between two men.

Larry Choate III, class of 2009, married Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, before about 20 guests.

Choate, 27, taught Sunday school at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel and said he always thought of it as the place he would get married if he could.

West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York state legalized gay marriage. But Saturday’s wedding was the first time two men wed at West Point.

Read more from this story HERE.

Astonishing Success of West Point Grad who Grew Up in 12 Foster Homes and Went to Four Different High Schools

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Josh Kelchner, a long-term foster child, has defied the odds to graduate from New York’s prestigious West Point Military Academy as a lieutenant.

After a rough childhood that included four different high schools and 12 foster homes, the 22-year-old has finally come to a point in his journey where he can relax – briefly.

Currently on holiday in Puerto Rico, the graduate has a short break before he heads to Fort Sill, in Lawton, Oklahoma, for field artillery training and to begin his five years compulsory service.

Kelchner’s childhood still haunts him. A local newspaper article about the then 17-year-old in 2008 describes the trials of the younger Kelchner.

When Kelchner was just a toddler his father abandoned the family, leaving his mother to raise Kelchner, who would be joined by three younger siblings.

Read more from this story HERE.

West Point: ‘Far Right’ Dangerous to U.S.

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A new West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center is linking opposition to abortion and other “fundamental” positions to terrorism, and pro-life leaders say it’s just a way to paint them in a negative way.

The study, “Challenges from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” says the major far right threats are from, “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”

Author Arie Perliger cites “anti-abortionists” as an active threat for terrorist activity.

“The anti-abortionists have been extremely productive during the last two decades, amassing 227 attacks, many of them perpetrated without the responsible perpetrators identified or caught,” Perliger wrote. “And while, in both cases, the 1990s were more violent than the last decade, in the case of anti-abortion, the trend is much more extreme, as 90 percent of attacks were perpetrated before 2001.”

American Life League President Judie Brown believes this is a smear tactic.

Read more from this story HERE.

West Point Chapel Hosting First Homosexual Marriage

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The first same-sex marriage at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel at West Point will be celebrated Saturday as Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin exchange vows.

The ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving.

Fulton, a veteran and the communications director of an organization called Outserve — which represents actively serving gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel — confirmed in an e-mail to USA TODAY Friday night: “We will be the first same sex couple to wed at the Cadet Chapel at West Point.”

The wedding will be the second gay marriage West Point has hosted. The first was a small, private ceremony last weekend between two of Fulton’s friends in a smaller venue on the campus.

In September 2011, the Pentagon issued guidance stating that “determinations regarding the use of DOD real property and facilities for private functions, including religious and other ceremonies, should be made on a sexual-orientation neutral basis, provided such use is not prohibited by applicable state and local laws.”

Read more from this story HERE.