By Ret. Col. Dr. Dencio Acop
My Fellow Grads and Friends,
Please allow me to clarify.
The Daily Readings I share are simply verses from the Holy Bible. And I do not even share them daily. Maybe, I should.
I beg to disagree that they are unrelated or irrelevant to our alma mater or ideals – the values that bind us together. Let me explain.
Before I do, I wish to pray first: “O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of men’s hearts — help us draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural. Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half-truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our country. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of men. — Amen” (Cadet Prayer)
The words I try to share are those pertaining to God from whom we draw the moral ethical values that hopefully guide our daily lives as active duty or retired men and women graduates of West Point. I do not know that those words detract from the ideals which West Pointers everywhere use to live as men and women of character and service. I only know that they exist to remind us, among others, of Duty – Honor – Country and our lifelong commitment to these ideals.
Once again, following are the words of one of our greatest alumni which best capture the meaning of our alma mater motto inspired by Scripture. “The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong. The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training – sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country, is the noblest development of mankind” (Douglas MacArthur).
The very foundation of the ideals of West Point is taken from the word of God, more specifically from John 15:13
Our brothers in arms from the US may follow a secular Constitution but there is no doubt regarding the inspiration provided by Holy Scripture. “As the Supreme Court of Florida said in 1950: ‘Different species of democracy have existed for more than 2,000 years, but democracy as we know it has never existed among the un-churched. A people unschooled about the sovereignty of God, the Ten Commandments and the ethics of Jesus, could never have evolved the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. There is not one solitary fundamental principle of (our) democratic policy that did not stem directly from the basic moral concepts as embodied in the Decalogue (Exodus 20: 1-17)
and the ethics of Jesus . . . No one knew this better than the Founding Fathers.’”
(State v. City of Tampa; 48 So. 2d, 78; 1950)
West Pointers are also citizens of their respective countries with their own cultures and laws. It is no surprise then that in the Philippines, most of us grads, are Christians. God and His word therefore are a major influence on the way we behave and live our lives. Based on the foregoing, there is no digression between what is relevant to West Point and Holy Scripture. As General and Mrs. Abaya have said, the Daily Readings keep us in tow.
In fact, the Preamble of the Philippine Constitution has these words: “We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution” (1987 Philippine Constitution).
This reference to the Almighty God points out the religious nature of the Filipino people as they acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being that guides their destinies and the destiny of their nation. The entire Preamble is like a collective prayer to this Supreme Being, recognizing Him as the source of their authority to promulgate the Constitution. The Philippines is a predominantly Christian nation and its people believe in the power of prayer”
(www.slideshare.net/AprilYourHeroine/preamble-13874769).
Life is all about choices. You are free to choose. You are also free to post.
I can be deleted. I am not your problem.
Sincerely,
Dennis Acop ‘83
Editor’s Note:
Dr. Dennis “Dencio” Acop is a retired army colonel who worked for Wyeth Nutrition, now a subsidiary of Nestle (2013-2018), as Director for Security and Business Continuity. Prior to this, Dencio had worked with Pfizer’s Global Security as Associate Director with its Asia-Pacific Regional Team (2010-2012). Formerly, he was Wyeth’s Country Manager for Security (2007-2009) and had been Director for Security Services with Pacific Strategies and Assessments (PSA) from August 2006 to December 2007. He is also a 1983 West Point graduate.
Not to proselytize, Dr. Acop shares Daily Readings with his fellow West Pointer Alumni’s Group. However, some group members did not like to see his posts about the Word of God and deemed his posts as not related to the West Point Academy.
Unperturbed, Dr. Acop reminded everyone who opposed about his posts the very foundation of the ideals of West Point which is taken from the Word of God, more specifically from John 15:13 and also shared the very heart of the Cadet’s Prayer, thus his posts about the Word of God are not unrelated or irrelevant to their alma mater or ideals – the values that bind them together.