Military Review English Edition November-December 2013 | Page 113
LETTERS
Ambition itself is not the problem. Ambition is
how things get done. It’s a question of which things,
how motivated. Generals are the one percent of
military society. Maybe we’re all serving the one
percent, one way or another.
All of our generals grew up under this system,
and it may be unfair to ask them to change it. It
would be unfair except for this fact: Without them,
change cannot occur, and Fromm et al., tell us that
change needs to occur.
I think that Fromm et al., are right.
There are others, but permit me to name one
general who retained his native human decency
despite the burden of stars on his collar—Paul T.
Mikolashek. Of him, more we need. To that general and to all others like him, I apologize while
urging our senior officers to use the “Myths” piece
to follow our authors’ lead in taking up a new kind
of conversation.
Thanks to Military Review for publishing this
essay and to the authors for recording their best
reflected convictions while exercising courage.
welfare by making it clear to them what is right
and what is wrong. Consistently choosing right
over wrong establishes integrity, builds character,
security, dependability, and trust among our people,
our leaders, our organizations, and our relationship
with the American people.
Let us continue with a visual model. The five
principles of Army ethics are: morality, honesty,
integrity, loyalty, and accountability. Army Values,
Standards, and Discipline support these principles
in detail.
Values
Army Ethics
Morality
Honesty
Integrity
Loyalty
Accountability
Army Ethics: Simple, But Not
Simple-Minded
Discipline
Maj. George Knapp, U.S. Army Retired—I found
Lt. Col. Brian Imiola’s short piece, “The Imaginary Army Ethic: A Call for Articulating a Real
Foundation for Our Profession” (Military Review,
May-June 2013), the best statement I have ever read
about the problem of U.S. Army ethics. He is right,
of course. The Army does not have a set of ethics
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