• SFC Sharp and the SECRET Papers”
Recently, you received an assignment as the communications and electronics staff NCO of the 99th Infantry Battalion. You are replacing SFC Sharp who is on the promotion list to master sergeant and is departing for his next duty assignment in two weeks.
SFC Sharp’s welcome was impressive and he has done everything imaginable to ensure you’re getting off to a good start. Your Soldiers appear well trained, and your section sergeant, SGT Day, seems to know just about everything. You know you have big shoes to fill when SFC Sharp leaves because everyone seems to like and respect him. You’ve heard people say that he knows more about infantry operations than most infantry platoon sergeants.
SFC Sharp has cleaned out his desk and tells you to make yourself at home. Later this afternoon he is receiving an award for his service to the 99th. His farewell party is this evening at the club.
As you are setting up your things in your new desk, you discover some papers wedged between the wall and the side of the desk. You pull them out and discover that they are pages from a communication security book and marked “SECRET.” You attach a cover sheet to them and go into the security vault to talk to SGT Day.
SGT Day checks the inventory and destruction certificates and discovers that SFC Sharp certified the destruction of the book these pages came from two weeks ago. Both you and SGT Day search the vault and the outer office for any other pages but you don’t find any. SGT Day turns to you and says,
“Sergeant, I don’t know about you, but the way I see this is that our section area is secure every evening. The civilian cleaning team doesn’t even clean our area. Only our people ever come in here. From the look of these pages they’ve been behind that desk for some time. These pages are from an alternate communications security book and were never used. The schedule shows them scheduled for destruction two weeks ago, and as far as I’m concerned SFC Sharp destroyed them two weeks ago.” Apply the Ethical Decision Making Method at Small Unit Level

158-C-1230

Conditions: As a leader faced with a situation which requires you to make an ethical decision.

Standards: Resolved the situation ethically by appropriately applying the Ethical Decision Making Method FM-1
FM 6-22
AR 600-100.

Training and Evaluation Guide

Performance Steps:

1. Clearly define the ethical problem.

2. Employ applicable laws and regulations.

3. Reflect on the ethical values and their ramifications.

4. Consider other applicable moral principles.

5. Commit to and implement the best ethical solution.

6. Assess results and modify plan as required.

Performance Evaluation Guide

Evaluation Preparation: Provide soldier with references listed below. Prepare a scenario that requires the soldier to respond accurately, IAW task standards, to the task performance measures listed above. This may be presented orally or in writing.

Brief soldier: Tell soldier that he/she will be required to correctly respond on at least 70 percent of the performance measures to receive a GO the task.

Performance Measures Results
1. Defined the ethical problem.
The ethical problem is that you have to now choose to either go along with SGT Day’s solution and keep it quiet or do you report it up higher. GO / NO GO
2. Identified and accurately applied all relevant laws and regulations.
I would have to check the Army Regulations and Unit SOP to see what the guidelines are for destruction of the materials and also reporting up the chain. GO / NO GO
3. Identified all appropriate ethical values.
In this case I would refer to the army values to see which ones apply to this situation. Integrity would be one of the most important values that applies to this case because even though SGT Day decided to look the other way I would not be able to do the same because of my integrity. Another would be Personal Courage because although you don’t want to tarnish SFC Sharp’s record or reputation you will need to have the courage to report the matter up the chain and not worry about what people will say or think about you. And the last on that I think applies is Loyalty because you are showing loyalty to your country, the army and your unit by doing what is right. GO / NO GO
4. Determined all relevant guiding moral principles from the ethical values chosen.

GO / NO GO
5. Identified and accurately applied all other relevant moral principles to the ethical problem. GO / NO GO
6. Chose a course of action which reflected sound judgment and a thorough analysis of steps one through five. GO / NO GO
7. Selected the best method to implement their chosen course of action. GO / NO GO
8. Implemented the course of action in accordance with a plan. GO / NO GO
9. Assessed results and modified the plan as appropriate. GO / NO GO