AP
May 16, 2008
The head of the US Military Academy thinks it's time to replace references to "men" and "sons" in West Point's two most beloved songs with more gender-neutral lyrics.
Lt. Gen. Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, superintendent of the nation's oldest military school, yesterday told a congressional oversight committee that with more than 3,000 women having graduated since 1976, the change was long overdue.
"We've got a couple buried in our cemetery," he noted, referring to two Iraq war casualties.
Hagenbeck wants to change the words to the academy's alma mater and its companion piece, "The Corps." Both date back about a century, the alma mater written by a 1911 grad and "The Corps" by a chaplain. Hagenbeck added that female cadets were not pushing for these changes but that it was a commonsense move, given women's role in today's military. "When are they going to be recognized for what they're doing?" he asked.
