Johnson, Kermit D. (1985, Summer). Military ethics. Military Chaplains' Review. 14(3), 5-16.
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"Recently I picked up the book The Defense Reform Debate, put out this year by the Johns Hopkins University Press. The book deals with varied topics such as forced structure [?], modernization and weapons doctrine, and acqisition times [?] - but not a word about ethics. Perhaps this is symptomatic, that among these so-called "hard" topics, it is difficult for a "soft" subject like military ethics to make it through the door, much less to be throught of as basic to military reform or change." (p. 5; the center margins didn't copy well, so are hard to read, therefore the question marks)
The military chaplains / H.R. department at the Vienna mission could have been used to this kind of thing - a military atmosphere void of (or with little) noticeable ethics. So it might have been easy to let this issue slide in the Vienna mission also if their influence (or others like them) had anything to do with this kind of thing and security issues and socialization and those kinds of things. So they may have just sort of waived aside ethics. And once they set up the system at the mission then others who came pretty muc much had to just accept the way it was at that point, as it was already set in cement and the newcomers were in no position to do anything about it anyway. If they tried anything like that they'd feel the full wrath of the system on them, I'm sure. I wouldn't even have tried that. I was too scared sh*tless to even let them know what I was thinking let alone try to change anything.
That being said, however, you'd think that a bunch of theologians (at the Vienna mission, I mean) would be open to "soft" subjects like ethics.
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"I once heard a general officer declare assuredly before a War College class that "ethics never won a battle."" (p. 5)
That may be true, if you're talking about flesh and blood battles between countries, but all I know is that having a clear conscience is priceless and Romans 7 talks about an inner battle that ethics can at least contribute to winning. Now that's a battle definitely worth winning, and I think if we all focused on ethics and winning our spiritual battle, we'd be a lot better off. (And this battle, incidently refers to a Christian struggle, so for this particular alternative the person could become a Christian or use an alternate perspective, I suppose.)
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"In a pragmatic, efficiency-dominated society, it is difficult for an ethically sensitive person to be taken seriously in the making of 'tough-minded, hard-headed' decisions ... Indeed the concern with honesty and human values becomes the sign that an individual is not practical enough to be entrusted with the responsibilities of making realistic political and economic decisions. (Or military decisions, we might add.) (p. 6)
Hallelujah!! cha-cha-cha! Yeah!!! Someone said it for me!!! Wooo-hoo!!! I can't believe it. Someone actually said it. It's amazing when someone actually says something I feel like. I mean I feel like I'm the only one in the whole universe that feels a certain way and then behold here it is right in front of me.
First of all "pragmatic." I've been saying over and over that the mission had a pragmatic philosophy. In fact, look it up - it's one of the keywords.
Efficiency, however doesn't have much to do with my situation or the Vienna mission, as far as I remember or know.
The reason that pragmatism and efficiency go together in the sentence is because that described (at least stereotypically) America at the time. Also, the society is still, it seems to me, dominated enough by male ethos that the "tough-minded" and "hard-headed" descriptors still fit, for the most part, although there are getting to be more and more places where other decision-making styles are appreciated. My own family does not trust me with these kinds of decisions, so I don't think anyone else will either. But this type of society is more likely to chew up and regurgitate someone with honesty and human values than they are to trust them by granting them any real responsibility.
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Here's something worth thinking about:
"Sometime back at one of our Army installations, a commanding general gathered his generals and special staff together for a workshop on ethics. At this unstructured workshop, the topic they finally decided to discuss was the ethical problems facing company commanders or captains..."Well then, what about captains? I attended a Fort Sill ethics workshop of captains in the artillery advanced course. In the panel I was with, what was their major concern? The ethics of majors and lieutenanant colonels. So I attended the United States Army War College. And what was the burden of concern among my Leutenant Colonel and Colonel classmates in ethics seminars? Why of course, the ethics of generals. Ethics is always someone else's problem.But ethics is not someone else's problem. It is our problem." (p. 6)
In the Vienna mission this could have been part of the problem. Can you imagine if all the theologians had actually had guts? I mean had actually had had ethics and the courage to stand up for something and say, "You know this really doesn't seem right. I don't feel comfortable with this. My supporters might not understand me, but I have listen to my conscience and obey God and take a stand here." Can you imagine what would have happened? But instead I alone was treated awful and the mission was able to use me to scare the bajeebers out of anyone who might want to do anything at all contrary to what they want and the mission went on as normal in peace virtually unscathed after my departure.
But even now, it's not someone else's problem. I don't know what's going on in the mission now, so I can't say anything about the mission now, except that the current director is my former boss.
But maybe there are other things that you've been hedging on that maybe you should step up to the plate and take a stand on. I don't know what's in your life, so you have to decide.
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I'm going to end there and finish the article tomorrow in the next post.
