In 1981, I served my first year as a team leader at Ranger School. On the last Friday, the Colonel asked the command staff to come to the operations trailer for a staff meeting. Oddly, we were told to bring our survival knives.

As we sat down around the table, I found myself to the left of the Colonel, who sat at the head of the table. Across the table from me were the cadet commander and cadet deputy commander. To my left were the Alpha and Bravo team leaders. At the end of the table opposite the Colonel was another senior member. I didn’t really know him, although I knew his son well.

Interestingly enough, the first thought that struck me was that I was the only enlisted cadet there. Everyone else was at least a lieutenant, but I was used to being the only NCO in a group of officers. The second thing that struck me was that everyone was really serious. We normally had very informal staff meetings that were a lot of fun. Of course, normally the Colonel was the only senior present. I figured that this additional officer might have had something to do with the formality.

I didn’t have to wait long for an explanation. The Colonel explained that we were there to decide who had passed and who had not. I was rather embarrassed when the other staff members began taking out notes. I didn’t have any notes on my people. I did have everything up in my head, but I hated looking unprepared.

The Colonel explained that we would vote as the ancient Vikings did: in a Council of War. If we felt that someone should join our clan, we were to raise our knives (in lieu of swords) in the air. If we felt they should not pass, then we were to pound the tip of our blade into the table. He was probably just making it all up as he went along. I almost laughed, but you were never really sure if the Colonel was being serious or not.

The first name to come up was that of a girl I had met up there. I had not been looking for a girlfriend or anything. In fact, I frowned upon fraternization. I had done nothing with her except have a few conversations, but I was lonely and thought I might like to get to know her when we got back to civilization. You know how it is when you are a teenager. I was lonely and she was friendly.

As soon as the Colonel said her name, two knives went into the table with such force that they chipped the Formica. Looking around, I saw that two other cadet staff members had their knives in the air. I guess were really WERE going to do the Viking thing.

My knife remained on the table untouched. I just stared at it. I hadn’t expected this at all. I didn’t think I would be voting on people who weren’t on my team.

“Why are you abstaining, Hannibal?” the Colonel asked me with a puzzled and slightly irritated look on his face.

“Why am I what, Sir?” I had no idea what abstaining meant. Heck, I was 15 years old and had never voted on anything in my life.

“Why aren’t you voting?” Everyone chuckled as my face turned red.

“Oh… Well, Sir, uh, I have developed certain feelings for the sergeant, and I don’t believe it would be fair for me to vote.” It sounded so noble, so fair, so mature.

“I see,” said the Colonel. Then after a pause, he continued, “I shall also be abstaining. I also have feelings for the sergeant. I have had my eye on her for years, Sergeant, and you had just better keep your hot little hands off of her.”

It was hilarious! First off, everyone in the room knew that he couldn’t stand her. Hate would not have been too strong of a word. She really annoyed him because she lived close to him and occasionally dropped by to see the cadets living with him. If he had been the sole vote, she would never have gotten her beret.

It was made even funnier by the fact that the Colonel rarely let down his hair and joked with subordinates. This was certainly the only time I had ever heard anything from the Colonel that could even remotely be termed sexual. The guy was over 50 years old and weighed over 300 pounds. That kind of stuff just never came up.

The joke was a masterful way of diverting attention away from the fact that I had just admitted to fraternization and the inability to be impartial in her case. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he did me a real service there. Many officers would have pounced on me to prove a point. The colonel understood that I wasn’t a bad leader. I was just a mixed up 15 year old kid.

“Since that apparently leaves us with a tie, the captain will be the deciding vote.” We all turned to the senior member at the end of the table. We all knew he didn’t have a clue if she had done well or not. I think I saw him 3 times the entire two weeks. Except as a driver, he had had almost no contact with us.

He voted to pass her, and a dark cloud descended over me. She was getting her beret…and it was my fault. She had no business getting her beret. She whined, she caused trouble, and she was always flirting. She was not physically fit, and had shown no real potential for becoming so.

I was a coward. I may have sounded all noble and mature, but I was being a complete weasel. I was interested in a girl, and I didn’t want to be the one to vote her down.

The ironic thing is that my abstention is what made the Colonel stop from voting against her. He had been more than ready to fail her, but he abstained so that his personal feelings against her would not unfairly impact her. Apparently, I had inspired him with my “sense of fairness”. This just made me feel worse because I had unintentionally made the Colonel go against his better judgment.

We quickly moved on to the other ranger candidates, but I never really got over that moment. My decision to take the “easy” way out is the only thing I regret doing during my years as a cadet. There were other times when I screwed up or acted like an idiot, but this was the only time I did something that I knew was wrong. The fact that I did it in front of the people I respected most in the world made it even worse. I had been entrusted with the future of the ranger program, and I had dropped the ball.

While that moment is still painful for me to remember, I did learn an important lesson. I will never compromise my integrity again, even when it would be politically astute or expedient to do so. There isn’t anything I can accomplish in CAP, no activity, no mission, that is worth my integrity. I can compromise on many issues where I disagree with someone, but if something is clearly wrong, I will have no part in it. I never want to feel like that 15 year old weasel again.

I don’t like sharing this story. To this day, I am ashamed of what I did. However, I have seen cadets become officers and then start to play the political games they find seniors playing at higher headquarters. They start to compromise their integrity to achieve some “important” goal that in the long run will mean nothing to them. Once you do that and are successful, it’s hard to go back. I have seen excellent c/2LTs who, as cadet colonels, become political creeps that everyone despises.

So I offer this story, no matter how bad it makes me look, as a lesson to all those cadet officers out there who are giving up what they believe in for some short-term gain. My advice to you is to do the right thing, even when the consequences might be bad. You will feel much better about losing the right way than winning the wrong way.