What a difference a year/Hegseth makes.
Bieger wrote that 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 The email did not say whether Hanks’s award has been revoked or if it will be presented in some other format.
“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,” wrote Bieger, who earned a Silver Star for combat valor in Iraq.
The decision marks a dramatic shift from June, when the association announced Hanks as its 2025 Thayer recipient. The alumni group cited his work acting in several movies portraying U.S. service members, including “Saving Private Ryan,” “Forrest Gump” and “Greyhound.” It also credited his producing of “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” both World War II-themed miniseries, and his extensive advocacy for veterans.
Hanks, the announcement noted, was a leading proponent for creation of the World War II Memorial in D.C.; supported efforts to build a national memorial for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a celebrated Army general before entering politics; and served as national chairman for a massive fundraising campaign to establish what is now the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
West Point also recently rehung a 20-foot portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate who fought to preserve slavery for the Confederacy, in its library, a move
first reported by the New York Times. The artwork, featuring an enslaved person guiding Lee’s horse in the background, was put in storage in 2022 at the direction of a congressionally mandated commission that examined what to do with images, symbols, names, monuments and other items that commemorate the Confederacy. [And Congress did not say put it back.]
He's still mad he didn't get an award on TV. 
