Duty First

by Ed Ruggero

  A lot of old grads are unhappy with the change. They believe Christman has somehow sold out a Camelot they remember for an academy that allows cheaters to graduate. Such black-and-white memories gloss over other features of the single-sanction system: a board of cadets that wanted to take extenuating or mitigating circumstances into consideration might do so by voting “not guilty.” And of course, West Point never was a perfect world: witness the cheating scandal of 1976, or a 1951 scandal involving widespread cheating over a period of time. (According to author Bill McWilliams, USMA 1955, eighty-some cadets eventually resigned in the wake of that scandal. The investigating board blamed it on football players; McWilliams says that was the simplistic finding of a “deeply flawed” investigation.)

  “The new Supe has changed things,” Yagel says. “It’s hard to go from ‘You did it, you’re out,’ to ‘You did it, you’re still here.’ But I understand why.

  “I was fortunate to have parents who taught me these values early on. But for many cadets, this is their first opportunity to think about these things. Why have such strict consequences if this is really supposed to be a place for learning? They get introduced to the concept, then they internalize it. If there isn’t an environment where you can make a mistake, how are you supposed to learn?”

  Yagel says most of his classmates support the single sanction: you did it, you’re gone. The hard-liners are, amazingly, some of the same people who resist the non-toleration clause. The problem comes down to this: it’s easy to be hard-hosed about honor in the abstract, when the cadet is a stranger, or from some other class. Yagel takes his responsibilities very seriously; he knows that the Honor Board is making decisions that will affect a young man or woman’s life. Not all cadets strive for such balance.

  “You have your ‘Honor Nazis,’ who want to hammer everyone. They go into these boards thinking if you’re here you must have done something wrong.”

  Being an Honor rep, Yagel says, “is kind of awesome.” His approach to the classes, his fairness, and even the example he sets influence the entire company’s acceptance of the Honor Code. That code, Yagel believes, prepares cadets for life.

  “It prepares you to make ethical choices. The goal is not a black-and-white view of right and wrong; the goal is to be an honorable person.”

  It is late on a winter morning, and Lieutenant General Dan Christman is also thinking about the Honor Code.

  Outside Taylor Hall, winter sunlight bounces off snow and river ice but does nothing to warm the air. Christman crosses the foyer outside his office, walks through the Academic Board Room, with its ten-foot fireplace and conference table heavy enough to land aircraft on. The briefing room is huge: the barrel vault ceiling thirty feet high. State flags hang from the walls; arched windows let in bright winter light. The tables are oak, the floor is oak, the walls paneled in oak.

  Christman greets everyone in the room, smiling and calling people by name. Brigadier General John Abizaid is here, along with a few members of his staff. There are military and civilian faculty members, and senior cadets from the Honor Committee. They all stand at attention until he directs them to sit. Christman has asked for an update on several studies looking at the cadet honor system and the state of honor and ethics training in the Corps of Cadets.

  The cadet Honor Code belongs to the cadets; throughout the briefing Christman gives the floor back to the cadets again and again, gently taking the discussion away from the nine officers and one civilian professor sitting at the table. Besides preserving cadet dominion over the system, this gives him the best sense of attitudes within the corps.

  During the discussion, someone puts up a slide that shows the definition of electronic copying. This has become the latest hot topic for the Honor Committee. Someone suggests that the definition should be further clarified. Colonel Kerry Pierce, the Superintendent’s chief strategic planner, claims that a clearer definition won’t be enough.

  “The vaguer their understanding, the safer they feel,” he says. “Just because they’ve been educated doesn’t mean they have a desire to understand the definition fully. A lot of the cadets who wind up accused of electronic copying see claiming to be confused as a tactic. Cadets try to stick with the letter of the law when it suits them.”

  A civilian professor on the committee says that some cadets see some honor violations as “petty,” on a par with violating some small regulation.

  One professor says the endless pages of regulations keep the cadets from assuming responsibility. They think that getting away with a breach of regulations is part of the “game”, that it shows some spirit. Some cadets transfer this same mentality to the cadet Honor Code.

  “They don’t want to know what the code says so they can believe they didn’t violate it,” another professor says.

  Christman seems amazed, even a bit exasperated.

  The overwhelming majority of the Corps of Cadets lives by the Honor Code; most of them see it not as an onerous imposition, but as a perquisite that comes with cadet life.

  One cadet sums it up as, “It’s nice to be able to trust people.”

  But the cadets who follow the rules aren’t the ones Christman sees. As the final arbiter of honor cases, he is presented with a sad procession of bad decisions: a cadet who used a fake ID card to get into a bar at Fort Benning; another accused of shoplifting. One or two cadets who copy work, then fail to document the assistance. They misrepresent themselves, they quibble, they shade the truth.

  “Why would a cadet risk a failure of integrity just to avoid an academic failure or a bad grade?” Christman asks the big room. “We probably have hundreds of cadets who have failed a couple of academic courses and have made them up. There are no cadets around who have broken the Honor Code twice.”

  Christman does not claim it is an easy code to live with; but it is the only way to run the army.

  One professor says that the explosive growth of information available on the Internet—such as term papers that can be downloaded for a fee—tempts some cadets. But Christman interrupts. He isn’t worried about temptations facing the cadets because he can’t control those. He is not in pursuit of a perfect, insulated world. He is in pursuit of graduates who can exist in the murkier waters of the world beyond the gates and still have the courage to make the right choices. The answer, as he sees it, lies in education.

  “We’ve got to do everything possible to make sure cadets recognize ethical decisions. We can’t mandate decisions, no matter how many rule books the Honor Committee or this committee draws up.”

  “Part of this mind-set [of always checking the rules] comes from the fact that accused cadets consult with lawyers,” Christman says. “And a good lawyer is going to look for loopholes, is going to try to get his or her client out from under the accusation.”

  While the lawyer Christman knows this is good for due process, it works at odds with one of the great goals of the entire honor system. Looking for loopholes, technicalities, process errors, all those things encourage the cadet to avoid taking responsibility. And that is a cardinal sin in character development.

  “Some of these cadets are found, they admit that they did it, yet they still refuse to accept responsibility,” Christman says incredulously. “Anything except take responsibility.”

  In a crude way, this is what the Academy tries to teach by giving new cadets only four responses: “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” “No excuse, sir,” and “Sir, I do not understand.”

  Give that third response, and a cadet can expect to be punished. But when that eighteen-year-old plebe learns to use it for what it really is—an admission of personal responsibility—he or she also gains a measure of respect that is indispensable for a leader.

  Christman cannot legislate this; he cannot order it. He can train and educate; he can inspire. He must. Acceptance of personal responsibility is a hallmark of the officers corps, part of what defines the profession. Soldiers reserve a special disdain for those who won’t accept responsibility.


  Christman, against all conventions, against the norms for society, against everything played out on the news, against the example set by the commander in chief—is trying to teach something else.

  Another subcommittee puts up a slide showing the results of a survey conducted among members of Corps Squad teams. The study tried to identify whether the cultures of certain teams affected the way cadets on those teams viewed honor and ethics.

  There are two parts to the study. The first surveyed cadets’ ability to recognize an ethical quandary; the second showed their desire to live honorably. In both studies, women’s teams scored as high or higher than the rest of the corps. In both surveys, the hockey, football, power-lifting, and lacrosse teams scored below the norm.

  Several theories are offered around the table: football and hockey are “heavily recruited,” one officer says. The Academy goes out after kids who play these sports, it could be that players on these teams are not as self-selecting as the population of cadets in general.

  “We have to consider that coaches come from different environments,” Christman adds. “Where winning is the most important thing. We’ve got to get to them early, make sure they understand that ethics is the heart of what this institution is about. Winning is important; this is more important.”

  “One or two cadets can adversely affect a whole team,” the Superintendent adds. “We have to change this through the chain of command.”

  Christman has directed that all team captains also be made cadet captains; they wear the same four stripes as cadets who command companies. They are invested with some authority and, as in any military organization, they are held responsible for their people. This is not just a Band-Aid. Team captains—all of them seniors—now must answer for the conduct of their players on and off the field. Christman has superimposed a military structure on top of any informal structure that might have existed, where the best players, the starters, might be the only team leaders.

  Another slide goes up on the screen, a vast array of numbers. A lieutenant colonel takes hold of the electronic pointer.

  “We also looked at the treatment of minorities in the honor system,” the briefer says.

  With the help of the math department, which did a statistical analysis, the committee found that treatment of minorities does not differ in a way that is “statistically significant.”

  Abizaid points out that his staff has done a similar study of punishments for breaches of regulations and found that African Americans and women are not treated differently.

  Christman warns the people gathered around the table that they need to keep these facts and statistics at hand. A recent newspaper article about a suit filed against the U.S. Naval Academy makes Christman think that West Point will soon be getting inquiries. The Washington Post article detailed an honor investigation at Navy; it also showed just what kind of Gordian knot can land on the desk of the Superintendent on a Monday morning.

  According to Major John Cornelio, USMA Public Information Officer, a male and a female midshipman were accused of having sex in Bancroft Hall, the midshipman dormitory. The punishment is often expulsion. The male freely admitted to having consensual sex and was forced to leave the Academy; the woman claimed it was date rape. Other midshipmen witnesses said there was no sign of compulsion, that the woman was inebriated but not resisting. The investigating officer appointed by Navy’s Superintendent found that it came down to a matter of he-said, she-said. There was not enough evidence to accuse the male of date rape. On the other hand, Academy officials could not dismiss the woman (for having sex in the midshipman dormitory) because they could not prove that the sex act was not consensual. Nor could Navy retain the male midshipman, who admitted to breaking a rule that calls for dismissal. The sex act thus existed simultaneously as consensual sex and date rape.

  The woman was allowed to stay at Navy. The male midshipman was dismissed. Because the woman is white and the man black, his family maintains that the decision was evidence of racial prejudice.

  Throughout the meeting Christman compliments the work of his subordinates, especially the cadets, who have done several studies. Cadets on the Honor Committee put in long hours: watching the progress of investigations, seeing to the education program, sitting on boards, conducting investigations, and talking to cadets. All of this is on top of their regular course work.

  Christman leaves the cadets with an admonition not to let down in the few months before graduation. It is their responsibility to ensure that the work of the Honor Committee continues smoothly as the next class takes over. His responsibility—nothing less than the moral development of a generation of Army leaders—has a longer horizon. West Point takes this deliberate, detailed approach to moral development because of the explicit statement, in its mission, to create “leaders of character.”

  WE’VE NOT MUCH LONGER

  We’ve not much longer here to stay

  For in a month or two

  We’ll bid farewell to “Kaydet Gray”

  And don the “Army Blue”

  Army Blue

  By tradition, the last song played at West Point dances

  Kris Yagel, the Honor Rep for Company E-2, sits in the First Class Club, nursing a beer and shaking his head at how quickly his senior year is drawing to a close. “I’ve already turned over my Honor Rep duties to the second class in my company. Ten days of class, then exams, and then … it’s graduation,” he says.

  Cadets spend much of their time counting days and wishing huge chunks of time could just disappear from the calendar, but now Yagel is feeling a pull in the other direction.

  “I can’t wait for graduation to get here, but I also want to spend time with my friends, because we’re about to be separated.”

  At tables all around him, Yagel’s classmates seem determined to get the most out of this Friday night.

  The Firstie Club is part college bar, part shrine. Built as the Ordnance Compound in 1840, the building was used to store ammunition and powder (ordnance) until the twentieth century. The walls are covered with photographs documenting the cadet days of the Class of 1958, which renovated the club so that the seniors would have a place to relax. In the not-so-distant past, cadets were forbidden to drink within twenty miles of West Point, which of course meant they just drove to bars farther away. Now twenty-one year-old seniors can drink beer within walking distance of the barracks. Many old grads think that such a privilege is apostasy, but Academy officials found that allowing cadets to exercise some of the same privileges enjoyed by their contemporaries at civilian colleges makes them better prepared to handle the sudden freedom that comes with graduation.

  There are dozens of tables and a smaller room filled with pool tables, video games, and a jukebox. In the forty-five-year-old black-and-white photos, the athletes wear bulky, high-topped athletic shoes; the buildings visible in the background belong to an older West Point. The young men in the photos, frozen in their season, look like Kris Yagel: scrubbed, healthy, earnest. None of them would have believed the years could speed by so quickly; Yagel is feeling a bit of that amazement.

  Across the table, Kevin Bradley and a couple of other firsties sit talking with Chuck Ziegler, a retired Army officer here for a weekend visit. They ask Ziegler, a former infantryman, about the force he joined twenty years earlier. The Army he describes—Ziegler served in Panama, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Hawaii—sounds as exotic to these cadets as the wars against the Plains Indians.

  Bradley and a few others drink Coke. They are only hours away from the start of the Sandhurst Competition, a grueling marathon of military skills that has dominated their lives for the past three months. The next morning will be filled with obstacle courses, running, land navigation tests, running, weapons disassembly, and assembly, running, shooting, running, rappelling, and more running. Bradley’s parents are even coming to watch. But the talk around the table is of the Army, of what awaits them, how well they are prepared, and what decisions they must make
. Bradley has reached at least one decision that weighed on his mind during the winter. He isn’t getting married.

  “Just not ready, yet. I’m twenty-one years old and haven’t lived on my own.”

  He and his girlfriend of a year, Amy, understand that his move to Fort Knox, then to Europe, will mean the end of the relationship.

  “She’s getting ready to go to Australia for a semester in the fall,” Bradley says a little glumly. He is already beginning to feel the cost of the turmoil that comes with military service: frequent moves can be tough on a personal life.

  Behind Bradley, another firstie, a woman in the spring uniform of dress gray coat and starched white pants, collects empty plastic cups and trash from the tables. She has the duty for the evening. Ziegler points out that the bar is neater than one would expect to find at most student unions.

  “Course, the guard might have something to do with that,” he jokes.

  Kris Yagel’s first assignment is Fort Polk, Louisiana, where he will be a Military Police lieutenant. MPs are either in law enforcement (the on-post police force), or in tactical units. Yagel is going to a tactical unit, which means frequent deployments overseas for peacekeeping missions. He and his soldiers will patrol civilian areas, maintain traffic and transportation routes, and generally enforce the Pax Americana at the beginning of the new century.

  The discussion of overseas deployments brings the talk at the table to Kosovo and the prospects for a ground war. The possibility is on everyone’s mind here, especially the firsties. No graduating cadet will go immediately to the Balkans; all of them will first go for five or six months of training in the technical skills they’ll need to command. But many of them will get there soon enough.

  Bradley is slated to join the First Infantry Division, the famed “Big Red One,” in Germany. A month before the conversation in the firstie club, three soldiers from the division were seized by Serbian forces from a road in Macedonia. This evening, as Bradley and Yagel sit in the Firstie Club, the Serbian government is threatening to put the three on trial.