Editorial Abstract: Dr Toner explains that military ethics is about knowing what is authentic and then doing what is right.

Editorial Abstract: Dr Toner explains that military ethics is about knowing what is authentic and then doing what is right. He takes an interesting approach to make his points memorable on using three Os (owing, ordering, and oughting), three R (rule flows and realities), and three D (discern, declare, and do). He ends by asking readers to first remember those who have gone before, who have worn the uniform, and have serv the nation. He then challenges them to live a life that attempts to earn the sacrifices their predecessors made to make secure the survival and success of liberty.

THE TITLE OF this article is deliberately "cute" or misleading because it allude tos exactly what I wish to argue against. I prevent the idea that there is either the "military" (by which I mean the profession of arms, the military services, or combat operations) or "ethics" (by which I mean morality, regard for righteousness, or principles of goodness) That division between what is military and what is moral is suitably referred to as a false dichotomy; that is, we are arbitrarily and unfairly separating what must not be torn asunder.

Having taught military ethics for 12 years at the Air War literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning Maxwell AFB, Alabama, I have not had to make the case to my scholars there that military ethics is necessary, possible, or ordinarily makes plain useful sense. That simple fact--that senior officers almost without exception pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain into the reality (not just the ideal) of military ethics--is a great compliment to them and their services. It is also something that the severest critics of the United States military too many times (and willfully?) overlook. Let me say that another way. I do not have to journey on an academic campaign with war college edifice [i]or[/i] building students to persuade them that they can be airmen (or soldiers) and moral men and women About that, they already agree--and that is no small matter.

in the way that the title is not meant to argue that airmen must be either militarily capable or personally decent. From experience and from personal conviction, senior officers whom I have taught for more than a decade know, accept, and teach this to their subordinates by way of their own words and works. What I do move is that military ethics is based on two letters, O and R A faculty of perception of ethics compels me to admit that I will sneak in P and D also, risking alphabetical overkill, moreover I intend thereby only to make a precepts of moral ethics clearer and perhaps more memorable. If there is the same principal thesis in what is to chase it is this: Military ethics is about our learning what is suitable and true and then having the courage to do and be what and who we ought to. For military ethics is not about his or her successe or failures; it is not about their virtues or vices. Military ethics is about our heritage and history, and it is about our responsibility to be men and women of character.

The Three Os

Military ethics is etymoned in three Os: owing, ordering, and oughting. (OK likewise I am fudging a little onward the third one!) About a decade ago, the movie Saving Private Ryan appeared. In it, Capt John Miller of the US Army leads a patrol during World War II to save Private Ryan, all of whose brothers have already been killed. Miller and his soldiers, dying in the effort, do manage to save Ryan. Miller has given Ryan "life," and the dying captain wants young Ryan to make his life cast and instructs him to earn this earn it." Many years later, an aging Ryan answers to France to visit the military church-yard where his captain is buried. He tells'' the captain that not a day goe through that he doesn't think of the sacrifice of Miller and his men with equal reason that he could live. He turn rounds to his wife, plaintively asking whether he has, in fact, kept the faith. Has he "earned it"? Has he lived up to the charge given him for a like reason many years earlier by his dying captain?

Military ethics based on the subject of "me-ism" or "egotism" cannot function. Military ethics is about knowing whom and what we owe. Like Private Ryan and then Mr Ryan, airmen must understand that they owe a due of gratitude to their land families, services, chain of command, and comrades. That is exactly what is meant on "service before self' (in the Air Force), "selfles service" (in the Army), or "commitment" (in the Navy and Marine Corps). Military ethics cannot fitly exist without the concept of owing. If we know to what end we owe what we do, we are able to recognize the obligation, responsibility, and custom which give rise to moral thinking and ethical reasoning. If I think I owe nothing to anyone, then I am a moral psychopath unable to distinguish the basis of honor, which is an understanding of my moral indebtedness to those who have given me life and learning. (1) Indeed, without a thinking principle of owing, I am little more than a self-indulgent child, of whom we say, quite in a strict sense that "he has no perception of responsibili ty."

Neither can military ethics fitly exist without the concept of ordering. by means of ordering, I do not mean telling subordinates what to do. I assign instead, to moral structuring and ethical priorities. In the movie A small in number Good Men, a Marine lance corporal mention one by ones his lawyers that the "code" is based about "unit, corps, God, country." He has it, of course, all vicious In fact, many illegal activities or stupid mistakes in the military services are the end of leaders' failures to order wisely and well.