During the Army-Navy football game on Saturday, Navy midshipmen held up signs mocking West Point for graduating an admitted socialist.
The signs at the game read “Not Communist” and “Communism Won’t Win,” in reference to 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone, a West Point graduate who in 2016 put “Communism Will Win” written in his cap at his graduation ceremony.
Caleb Hull (Twitter)
Rapone has been widely criticized on the internet – and so has West Point, for seemingly allowing this behavior and appearing to turn a blind eye to an apparent communist who espouses many things the U.S. Military and the United States fight against. West Point has said that Rapone’s actions “in no way reflect the values of the U.S. Military Academy or the U.S. Army.”
Rapone is a 2LT (Second Lieutenant) and an infantry officer in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. He has deployed to Afghanistan and received a combat infantryman badge (CIB).
Rapone had also posted a second photo of himself in uniform, seen wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath his uniform jacket. Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary who believed the poor people of Latin America would be saved by communism.
Defense Department regulations state that active duty service members are not allowed to promote political parties or candidates while in uniform.
Navy lost the football game to Army on Saturday, for the second year in a row.
