True Faith And Allegiance: The Burden of Military Ethics

3. Military Training: Inculcating Fidelity to Purpose

3. Military Training Inculcating Fidelity to Purpose All a soldier needs to know is how to shoot and salute. —Attributed to John J. Pershing (1860-1948) "To inculcate," explains one dictionary, means "to teach persistently and earnestly." Teaching may mean educating, or it may mean training. The two are often mistakenly equated, but knowing the critical—even vital—difference between the two is central to the themes presented in this book. At its best, education has to do with examining and instilling values. A taxonomy of "levels of learning" popular some years ago (and still, somewhat curiously, employed at some military schools today) lists knowing, comprehending, applying, analyzing , synthesizing, and evaluation as the steps on the ladder of learning. Students of ethics might well respond that true knowledge is an understanding of the Good—of what ought to be—and that such contrived divisions may only divert serious students from pursuing the ends of genuine education. Genuine education, as argued in Chapter 1, consists of courses of study that help us first to distinguish between the honorable and the shameful and then resolutely to act upon those distinctions .1 That education can for the most part be thought of in terms of people: their history, their culture, their relationships. Training, by contrast, involves instruction in using things: how to fly an airplane, how to throw a curve ball, how to change an oil filter, how to plant a garden, how to play the piano. The distinction between training and education can easily be blurred. A high school student working in a store can be taught how to stock things on shelves and simultaneously be taught how to be courteous to customers. But the basic point is simple: education concerns values; training concerns skills. Education 40 TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE normally involves some training (for example, in how to use a library or a word processor); training normally involves some education (for example, "Here's how one fires an M-16 rifle; don't shoot it at friends"). Education without training in some basic skills may appear useless, but training without an understanding of values can be dangerous. Consider a company of recruits who have just graduated from Marine Corps boot camp. They have a number of skills, many of them combat skills. But suppose they have had no ethical education at all—at home, in school, in church, or in boot camp. Are these new Marines likely to be a force for good or for ill? Training must be complemented by education if that training is to prove good for the student, cadet, or trainee—as well as for the parent organization and for society. Military Training: Preventing Atrocity In Chapter 1 you met the argument that "ethics is concerned with character, which is developed by rigorous education and fixed by virtuous habit. We are, as Aristotle once tried to tell us, the product of our practices." In Chapter 2 you met the argument that "the principal tasks of the military are to maintain true faith and allegiance to the republic by preparing to kill or die. While that statement appears to be severe, the central purpose of the military is to be an armed force." Military training is primarily concerned with converting civilians into soldiers who will serve their country with true faith and allegiance and, at the same time, be prepared to kill and die for it. Military training that does not foster soldierly competence is a failure; but military training that does not also inspire soldierly values is a hazard to all concerned with it. Military training grows directly from the exigencies and needs of the armed forces. If the primary purpose of the armed forces is to fight and kill, then military training must endow soldiers with the abilities to fight well. As one writer has pointed out, "The nature of the military profession, and the responsibilities of the profession to the society it serves, are such as to elevate professional competence to the level of an ethical imperative."2 In fact, phi- Military Training 41 losopher Malham Wakin has correctly noted that professional competence may well be considered a moral obligation: Within the context of the professional ethic, it appears the line between incompetence and immorality is a very thin line, perhaps most obviously so in the military profession. It is obvious that an incompetent physician may, in a lifetime of practicing bad...