Tom Hanks has been unable to receive an award due to a conflict arising from a recent decision made by Donald Trump.
Earlier in the week, on Friday (September 5), President Trump signed his 200th executive order, which reverted the name of the Department of Defense to its pre-1949 title, the Department of War.
In announcing this change, President Trump stated: “We won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke, and we changed the name to DoD. So, we’re going Department of War.”
“I think it’s a much more appropriate name, in light of where the world is right now,” he continued. “It sends a message of victory.”
Despite claims from historians that the name was originally altered post-World War II to signify the US’s role in preventing conflicts, the Trump administration has insisted that the nation is now aiming for ‘maximum lethality.’ The newly titled War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, referred to the previous stance as ‘tepid legality.’
As a consequence of this renaming, a surprising impact has emerged involving actor Tom Hanks.
The 69-year-old star of Saving Private Ryan was scheduled to attend a West Point alumni event on September 25 to be honored with an award.
However, the president and CEO of the military academy, retired Army Colonel Mark Bieger, announced that the ceremony was canceled on the same day Trump revealed the change.
Hanks, who has not served in the military but is a dedicated advocate for veterans, was set to receive the Sylvanus Thayer Award.
According to the Daily Mail, this accolade from the West Point Association of Graduates is awarded to non-alumni who embody the institution’s motto: ‘Duty, honor, country.’
In an email addressing the cancellation, Bieger informed attendees: “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.”
The cancellation follows a recent controversy involving Hanks, who faced criticism for depicting a Trump supporter as a ‘racist redneck’ in a Saturday Night Live sketch in February.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration maintains that the name change is solely about ‘winning.’
“We should have won every war. We could have won every war. But we really chose to be very politically correct or wokey and we just fight forever,” the 79-year-old president said on Friday.
“We just didn’t fight to win. We didn’t lose anything, but we didn’t fight to win.”