Military Review English Edition September-October 2013 | Page 59

The Myths We Soldiers Tell Ourselves
(and the Harm These Myths Do)
Lt. Col. Peter Fromm, U.S. Army, Retired; Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer, U.S. Army; and Lt. Col. Kevin Cutright, U.S. Army
When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. Can we conceive of anything more destructive to morality than this?1
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.2
Lt. Col. Peter Fromm, U.S. Army, Retired, is the deputy G1 for U.S. Army, Japan and I Corps (Forward). He is a former infantryman who taught ethics at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA). Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer is the IEWTD technical support division chief at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., has an MMAS (military history) from CGSC, and is the author of The Fight for the High Ground: The U.S. Army and Interrogation during Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003 - April 2004. Lt. Col. Kevin Cutright is serving in Korea as strategy and plans branch chief for Eighth Army. Lt. Col. Cutright holds an M.A. in pilosophy and an M.M.A.S. from the School for Advanced Military Studies. He also taught ethics at USMA. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

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PHOTO: Muleskinner Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) confronts Gen. George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan) before the Battle of Little Big Horn in the film Little Big Man. (National General Pictures, 1970/ Paramount, 2003).

HE ARMY ESPOUSES admirable values, and it is justifiably proud of its traditions of service. Today, America’s Army is arguably the best-trained, most disciplined force in the nation’s history, one that strives to fight effectively, legally, and ethically. However, while this self-image is certainly something we strive to fulfill, we have not always been as successful as we might wish. Regrettably, dishonesty and related trust problems plague the American Profession of Arms, human endeavor that it is. In the authors’ 70-plus years of military experience, the root of this dishonesty is self-deception, something in which everyone indulges. Illustrative of this malady was the Vietnam War, where self-deception and disillusionment watered America’s loss of will at home and contributed to eventual defeat.3 In Dereliction of Duty, H.R. McMaster describes the lies from the National Command Authority that led to the war.4 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) supported these machinations with their silence. As McMaster describes it— The president was lying, and he expected the Chiefs to lie as well or, at least to withhold the whole truth. Although the president should not have placed the Chiefs in that position, the flag officers should not have tolerated it when he had.5 Such lies set the conditions. In December 1964, Gen. William Westmoreland directed optimistic outlooks from senior military advisors, telling them: “As advisors we must accentuate the positive and bring best thought to bear to work out solutions to problems in a dynamic way.”6 Consequently, reports
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MILITARY REVIEW ? September-October 2013