James Joesph
Professor Roger Ward
Military Studies Capstone
10 December 2011
Webster College
Throughout my military career I began to realize that the military as a whole was not the perfect organization I had envisioned, because it depended on human beings in order for it to operate then of course it would be flawed just as human beings are flawed. When you enter Initial Entry Training (IED) formally Basic Combat Training (BCT) this could not be fathomed, because we are taught that the regulations do not leave room for interpretations and the standards never change, which give the impression that there cannot be many, if any, grey area’s which would allow for human judgment to take place.
Actually nothing can be further from the truth and as I grew within the army I began to see a natural competition and even a division among the different services in the areas of moral and ethical standards, although all of us fight the same fight there is still a recruiting battle that exist to find, sign and train the best people possible from the civilian ranks and anytime you have that element ,it will cause potential members to “choose sides”.
Each of our services has suffered through many different scandals over ethical dilemmas. The Navy in 1991 suffered the infamous “Tailhook Scandal” where Lt. Rebecca Hansen, a trainee helicopter pilot charged that her failing grades were in direct retaliation for her bringing charges against a flight instructor, and later when Gulf War Hero and then Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stanley Arthur, ruled against her, she then reported the incident to Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota who in turn as the New York Times, Goodman, W. (1996) reported “blocked Commander Robert E. Strumpf’s appointment to the Commander of the Navy in the Pacific”, which is the largest operational
