True Faith And Allegiance: The Burden of Military Ethics

Epilogue

Epilogue Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. —Paul's Letter to the Philippians, 4:8 There is a wonderful book by Gilbert Highet in which he tells prospective teachers, among many other things, that they must, at the end of their courses, firmly "fix the impression."! That is, he suggests that teachers repeat their principal points and review the ground covered, lest the main points of their teaching be obscured or lost. Thus to fix the impression is the purpose of this brief epilogue. Education is different from training in that good education concerns itself in substantial part with virtue. A course of schooling that cannot or will not separate right from wrong or honor from shame may be instruction or training, but it is not education in its proper, classical sense. One should never merely teach about ethics; one must teach ethics. Virtuous conduct is founded upon a knowledge of certain rules that right reason has discovered over the centuries; upon social customs and mores that have so developed; upon the mature recognition of outcomes and consequences likely to result from our choices; and upon the circumstances in which one is required to make ethical judgment. There may be times to make exceptions to rules. Social customs can be wrong. The end does not always justify the means. And situational ethics can be narrow, selfish, and wholly mistaken. Wise ethical choice in demanding circumstances is not easy. But men and women of character reflect upon what ought to be done and then do it, learning all they can from the lessons of the past—as well as from their own previous faults and flaws. Epilogue 149 Military ethics is part of moral philosophy. Because military ethics starts from a judgment about the "terrible swift sword"— that is, there are circumstances in which killing by soldiers is permissible—military ethics demands rigorous attention to ethical detail. Soldiers must recognize that they are subject always to the twin responsibilities of obedience to the commands of their own well-formed consciences and to the laws of the civil government. Soldiers must provide their civilian leaders with their best judgment about matters of national security, but the ultimate power of political decision in democratically elected governments resides—and must reside—in the hands of the elected government. In this book, I modify slightly the traditional military ethic of "duty, honor, and country" to read "principle, purpose, and people." Fidelity to high principle must come first; mission accomplishment normally comes second; and the welfare of one's subordinates and fellow soldiers is third only in the sense that loyalty to people should not supersede commitment to those principles that provide meaning for people in the first place. James Q. Wilson, author of The Moral Sense, contends that in the 1993-94 cheating scandal at the Naval Academy (see below) the midshipmen who protected their friends—thereby ignoring the Academy's honor concept—would thus never let their buddies down in war and that we have little to fear in the way of decaying moral fabric among our officers.2 He is very seriously mistaken . A central, and critical, part of any officer's education is that he or she owes true faith and allegiance to principle before people. The concepts of duty, honor, and country may be seen, by some, as providing cold comfort when they must be chosen ahead of loyalty to buddies. But cadets and midshipmen who cannot and will not make that crucial distinction deserve no commission in our country's armed services, for their oath of office implicitly demands, as the Marine Corps succinctly states it, that "a Marine on guard duty has no friends."3 Of course, without good education, one cannot wisely choose, for one does not know virtue. Thus the beginning point for all teaching, military and civilian, lies in ethical education. Because the profession of arms, over the centuries, has taught the virtues of honor, of duty, and of country, the profession of arms 150 TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE can, again, be an exemplar of integrity in a nation increasingly confused about the very existence of integrity itself. But isn't this all too glib? How is it possible...