War & Peace Quote by Bill Shuster

Tradition is doing a lot of quiet political labor here. Bill Shuster’s line isn’t trying to persuade you about military strategy or education policy; it’s trying to make the Army War College feel less like a federal institution and more like a hometown inheritance. By locating it in “central Pennsylvania” and anchoring it in “for years,” he turns a national security asset into a local landmark, the civic equivalent of a factory or a university that “belongs” to the region.

The specificity is strategic. “The Army War College” carries the sheen of seriousness and patriotism, but also the possibility of scrutiny: budgets, missions, base politics, and the occasional question of whether such institutions should expand, contract, or relocate. Calling it “a tradition” preemptively softens those debates. Traditions don’t get audited; they get protected. They are framed as part of the community’s identity, not just a line item.

This is also the rhetoric of stewardship, common to representatives who tie their political brand to place-based stability. Shuster doesn’t claim credit; he claims continuity. That lets him signal to constituents that he’s guarding a pillar of regional prestige and economic activity (jobs, visitors, contracting, and the diffuse aura of importance that comes with a military institution). The subtext reads: disrupting this would be an attack on central Pennsylvania itself.

The phrase is bland on purpose. Its power is in how it makes the status quo sound like common sense, and how it wraps institutional self-interest in the comforting language of local heritage.