Army Football Program Drops Motto Tied to White Supremacist Gangs | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is James Barrett.

    West Point administrators have dropped a motto that had become a part of the fanfare surrounding the Army football program since the mid-1990s after officials discovered that the phrase traced back to white supremacist biker gangs and the neo-Nazi prison gang Aryan Brotherhood.

    Starting in the mid-'90s the phrase "God Forgives, Brothers Don't" became a slogan embedded in some of the Army football programs iconography, particularly a black skull-and-crossbones flag which contained the acronym "GFBD" inscribed on the upper lip of the skull (shown in image above). The phrase, administrators learned in September, originated with white supremacist groups.

    In response, the administration and athletic programs took immediate action, pulling all references to the loaded slogan from any official school displays and promotional materials.

    "West Point officials and members of the athletic department said they were unaware that the phrase links to motorcycle gangs and Aryan Brotherhood sects until that connection was brought to their attention in September," ESPN reported Thursday.

    Upon learning about the origins of the phrase, Army Head Football Coach Jeff Monken addressed the team in September, Athletic Director Mike Buddie told ESPN. The slogan, Monken told the players, was being removed immediately. The

    Monken, said Buddie, was "mortified" to discover the roots of the motto, while the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy described the whole thing as "embarrassing."

    "It's embarrassing, quite frankly," said Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, as reported by ESPN. "Once I found out about this goofiness, I asked one of our most senior colonels to investigate," he added.

    Prompted by Williams' order, military officials conducted a two-month investigation into how the racially charged phrase came to be used by the school.

    As detailed in the executive summary of the investigation, officials concluded that it was introduced without any knowledge of its problematic origins and thus its inclusion since the '90s in the school's programs was "benign." Use of the motto had nothing to do "with the views or beliefs of white supremacist groups or any other disreputable organizations with which they might also be associated," the report stresses.

    According to investigators, the slogan was first used by players in the early '90s simply to symbolize "toughness, tenacity, camaraderie and accountability." Some of the players appear to have picked it up from a film starring famous former NFL linebacker Brian Bosworth titled "Stone Cold," which tells the story of an undercover cop who joins a Neo-Nazi biker gang from the south called "The Brotherhood."

    Investigators were able to track down the cadet who first used the phrase and he told them that he wasn't aware of the phrase's white supremacist origins. While the phrase appeared on a few T-shirts in the early '90s, it wasn't until 1996 that it first appeared on an official team flag, the report states.