Actor Tom Hanks will no longer be honored by the alumni association of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. A desire for the venerable Army service academy to focus on its key task of preparing future officers for war is reportedly behind the institution’s move to distance itself from one of Hollywood’s arch Trump haters.
According to the Washington Post, retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive officer of the West Point Association of Graduates, disclosed the decision in an email to faculty circulated Friday.
A copy of Bieger’s missive was reviewed and verified by the outlet, thus confirming Hanks, 69, will no longer receive the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award, which recognizes an “outstanding citizen.”
According to the Post report, Bieger detailed the alumni association, in coordination with the academy, “will not be holding the Thayer Award ceremony” as originally scheduled and apologized for the cancellation.
The email did not say whether Hanks’s award has been revoked or if it will be presented in an alternative format.
Bieger, who earned a Silver Star for combat valor in Iraq, further added:
This decision allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army.
President Donald Trump told West Point cadets at May’s commencement they “have the brightest minds,” along with “the bravest hearts and the noblest souls.”
Trump had returned to West Point to deliver the commencement speech after having done so in 2020, but not before it had previously sought to go woke and be more “inclusive” during former President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House.
“Every cadet on the field before me should savor this morning because this is a day that you will never, ever forget,” Trump said at the top of his speech.
While Trump supports the 223-year-old institution, Hanks himself has never sought to hide his contempt for the Republican president.
As recently as last February, Hanks played a racist Trump supporter in a Saturday Night Live bit for the sketch show’s 50th anniversary, as Breitbart News reported.
He dismissed Trump’s backers as dumb oafs, prone to racism and sheer stupidity.
Hanks previously said during the 2024 election he was only worried about a Trump presidency in the short-term.
“I think there’s always a reason to be worried about the short-term, but I look at the longer-term of what this — what happened. I think there is an ongoing — look, our Constitution says, we, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, that journey to a more perfect union has missteps in it,” he told CNN.
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