An award ceremony for “Saving Private Ryan” star Tom Hanks has been canceled by the West Point Association of Graduates, an alumni association for the the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., according to The Washington Post.
The Post reported Saturday that the award ceremony was canceled by the West Point Association of Graduates because the association wants the school to pay more attention to getting future officers ready for war.
In a faculty email, retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, who serves as president and CEO of the West Point Association of Graduates, let others know about the choice to cancel the ceremony, according to the Post, which said it obtained the email.
Hanks would have been awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award, according to the Post.
On the West Point Association of Graduates website, the association states the award goes “to an outstanding citizen of the United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in the West Point motto, ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’”
It is not clear whether Hanks, who has starred in several movies honoring U.S. veterans of foreign wars and was instrumental in getting the World War II memorial built on the National Mall, will still get the award.
Hanks has a history of criticizing President Trump, saying in June 2024 that Trump securing a second White House term could indicate that the U.S.’s “journey to a more perfect union has missteps in it.”
“I think there’s always reason to be worried about the short term,” Hanks told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour when asked if he’d worry about the country’s “commitment to democracy and freedom” if Trump won later that year.
“But I look at the longer term of what happened, I think there’s 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,” Hanks added.
The Hill has reached out to the West Point Association of Graduates and a representative for Hanks for comment.
