Since the last time I wrote for CadetStuff, there has
been a surprising amount of debate over whether a leader ought to have morals streaming
over the through the ether in the CadetStuff forums. At least
it was surprising to me, because from where I sit this is a trick question. Let me
explain.
One of the things I have come to appreciate about the ethics
curricula I have been required to teach over the years for Navy, Army, and Air Force ROTC
is how much your professional educations resemble a combat loaded ship, or a C-5, if that
image hits closer to home for you. As your naval equivalents would say: "if the Navy
needs you to have it, it's issued to you in your sea bag." So, if, as C/2LT Nicholas
Horn pointed out in his forum message,
the Air Force requires a CAP squadrons to hold a moral leadership class every
month, that's got to tell you something about where your Service (and the American
military as a whole) stands on the question of whether you need to be a good person in
order to be a good leader. The Air Force packs character development — a lot of it
— into your mental rucksack, so to speak, combat loaded to be taken out and used on a
frequent regular basis.
Does it want its leaders to have good morals— or ethics,
(military ethicists use the two terms pretty much interchangeably, but if they sound
too theoretical for you, you can substitute the term honor)? Well, that's what
philosophers would call a rhetorical question, otherwise known as a no-brainer.
The answer's pretty much clear to begin with — if your
Service didn't need you to have a reliable moral compass, it wouldn't bother you, or
itself, about making sure you have one. So, the question of whether you ought to have
ethics is posed not so much as a matter for debate but more as a lead-in to deeper
questions, like why does the Air Force hold its officers to a stricter code of conduct
than exists in the society they come from?
So why is good character in officers so important that your
program takes up so much of the limited time allotted for your professional courses to
convince you of it? Why does USAFA have not only a Philosophy Department where
military ethics is taught, but a Center for Character Development
as well? Why do the US military services jointly host a yearly meeting on professional ethics
to which the Canadian, British, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, New Zealand, Australian, and
Chinese Forces go to the trouble and expense of sending some of their hardest-charging
officers and cadets? Why does Parameters
(the cutting-edge journal of the US Army War College) publish papers, and the Proceedings of the Naval Institute
run a contest for the best essay, on military ethics?
Well, flatly stated, it's all because we have found over 226
years of experience, some of it very sad, that ethical officers serve our nation well, and
unethical ones do not. Or, as British Lieutenant General Sir John Winthrop Hackett, whose
own country's military experience is five times longer than ours, told cadets at the
Harmon Memorial Lecture at USAFA back in 1970, "A man can be selfish, cowardly,
disloyal, false, fleeting, perjured, and morally corrupt in a wide variety of other ways
and still be outstandingly good in pursuits in which other imperatives bear than those
upon the fighting man. He can be a superb creative artist, for example, or a scientist in
the very top flight, and still be a very bad man. What he cannot be is a good sailor,
or soldier, or airman."
Well, why not? As some of you pointed out, people followed
Stalin, they followed Pol Pot and Milosevic — moral monstrosities all. They even
followed Hitler. But one of the first things he felt he had to do to after assuming office
was to purge the German High Command and replace them with yes-men who'd toe his party
line in order to secure his command. His generals cursed him for a fool as their men
starved and froze outside the gates of Stalingrad on his orders. Later, some conspired to
blow him up. And the best of them, Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, burned Hitler's immoral
orders to murder POWs, and eventually swallowed poison rather than compromise his
soldier's honor; legend has it he died with an expression of utter contempt for his
Furhrer (the word literally means "leader") on his face. That's some kind
of leader whose officers fear and despise him, but not a good one, and nowhere near so
effective as we tend to give him credit for having been.
Nicolo Machiavelli, whose cynical advice to princes is sure
to be trotted out in any debate on this subject, was wrong. Those who imagine they're
leading by underhanded manipulation and outright intimidation had better watch their
backs. People in general are not so stupid as such leaders need them to be. Some of the
sharpest people I know are enlisted men. Believe me, they know when they're being
manipulated, and they have a way of breaking ranks or turning on so-called leaders who
misuse or mislead them. The only leaders who can depend upon their followers in a pinch (and
combat is the ultimate 'pinch') are those who have earned their respect with their
competency and their trust with their honor.
Gaining trust is easier talked about than done in the wake of
a recent commander-in-chief's lying over his illicit sexual activities and a major
business company's fleecing of its own employees while top executives lined their pockets
at their expense. Ask yourself this — would you buy a used car from these people,
much less follow them into battle? Not likely. How would you feel about being ordered to
fly in a new model aircraft whose proponents had lied about its airworthiness? Or having
your advancement in the hands of an officer who cares so little about the people in her
charge that she sees nothing wrong in having an affair with one of her airmen's husband?
If an officer pads his TDY expenses or cheats on his own wife, you've got to ask yourself
how well he's going to fulfill his responsibilities towards you.
In these mistrustful times, an officer's greatest assets as a
leader are his competence and his honor. Yet even as I write this, the sorry news has hit
the papers of Air Force Academy cadets who have been caught throwing the trust and respect
of their Service and their peers away with both hands. And for what? A hit of the latest
designer drug at an off campus party and the cheap thrill of breaking faith with the
Corps? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Too stupid for responsible leaders. Thank your Higher Power
their lack of judgment and honor has been discovered before you were required to follow
them into combat. |
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