This isn’t about the official response, it’s about all the tongue wagging that’s going on around the incident. If a pentagram object (we are not talking graffiti) was found placed on a Christian altar, it would likely just be chucked out in the trash, maybe after some prayers made for whoever put it there.
I really doubt that the pentagram on the altar scenario would get a brush-off like that at the Air Force Academy. And did you see the size of that cross? It looks very likely that it took more than one person to get it there. And where the heck does a cadet conceal something like that between the time it’s acquired/assembled and the time it’s snuck out to the circle (presumably in the dead of night, and probably involving infractions of other Academy rules for cadets). This is most likely the work of two or more cadets who made a concerted effort to mount this obnoxious protest of an officially-recognized worship space.