Air University Review, September-October 1976

Today’s Air Force officer is unlikely to measure up to Shakespeare's description. He not only has much to do, but when time does allow for reflection, there is much to meditate on besides blood. When the military officer does think about himself and his profession, his thoughts are probably far from blood, yet still close to the concept of the professional soldier. These thoughts are more likely to focus on or around one issue: Integrity.

Of all the charges and criticisms levied on the officer corps in the last decade, the most indelible and perplexing have been in the area of integrity. Lapses in judgment are accepted, if not expected, in endeavors as large and complex as ours. No one remembers the names of those who bombed the Russian ship in Haiphong harbor or those who procured the short-lived B-58. Even atrocities like My Lai are remembered as aberrations, and few critics, either external or internal, seriously suggest that Lieutenant William Calley's sins are shared by us all. Unfortunately the names that are remembered, that somehow fail to disappear into the broad sweep of history, are those whose lack of integrity imply that the "honor" in "Duty, Honor, Country" may be crumbling. America and its military would decry any notion that the officer corps views itself in terms of its aristocratic heritage, but will not accept any falling away from the concept of honor which springs from that heritage. 

Within the Air Force, however painful it may be to admit, worries about integrity are merited. Each of us has his own personal happy-hour story of integrity challenged or integrity compromised. Our general officers, when speaking of leadership, or what they look for in subordinates, or how to succeed in the Air Force, consistently mention integrity as a prerequisite, with the clear implication that they have encountered a number of officers without integrity. Objective data can be seen in surveys of officers who leave the Air Force. For example, a study of Air Force Academy graduates listed a lack of integrity in the Air Force as the third-ranking reason they left the service.

If, then, we perceive integrity as a problem, how do we foster it? First, we use incantation: the repetitive plea for integrity from senior officers to juniors, from faculty (at professional military education schools, ROTC, Air Force Academy, etc.) to students, from writer to reader. The shortcoming of incantation is twofold; it is transitory in effect and attacks the symptoms rather than the causes of where and why our integrity is slipping.

A more recent effort to foster integrity is the attempt to develop a written code of ethics for Air Force officers. This approach can be seen in three studies by Air War College and Air Command and Staff College students in the last two years, is also addressed in the ACSC curriculum, and has received encouragement from the former Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Lieutenant General John Roberts. Its allure derives, at least in part, from the behavior of prisoners-of-war (POW's) in Southeast Asia. Their honorable conduct, despite torture, solitary confinement, and imprisonment for as long as 7½ years, is a source of tremendous pride to Air Force officers. When POW's speak of the Code of Conduct and how it sustained them, we listen very carefully. Yet any official code of ethics faces a number of hurdles in the area of applicability: involvement (Air Force officers? all officers? all military?); length (Is "Duty, Honor, Country" too short? Is three pages too long?); and method of implementation (by vote? by the Joint Chiefs of Staff? by Congress?).

While a written code of ethics has its sincere advocates, it ignores the most fruitful avenue of attack for fostering integrity. Those who say the solution is a written code of ethics make the implicit assumption that the problem is lack of such a code. That assumption throws into deeper darkness the problem of what other factors within the Air Force erode integrity and what changes might be made to reduce or eliminate these factors. That these factors are not spotlighted should not be a surprise. After all, since integrity is an initial and implicit assumption in all that we do, why would anyone assess policy or procedures as to their effect on integrity? Since integrity is incumbent upon each of us, why should anyone question that there is neither an integrity office of primary responsibility at any level of command nor any guidance anywhere on when and how to rely on integrity?

I hold that the greatest danger to integrity in the Air Force is not lack of sufficient exhortation to have integrity or lack of a written code against which we may measure our acts. Instead, I suggest that the danger springs from our collective failure to stop the erosion of integrity caused by official Air Force management systems and procedures. This is admittedly a strong and rather unpalatable statement, yet it rests on and is directly derivable from two postulates that I submit are amply sustainable. The first postulate is that little lies build big ones (or at least prepare a path for them). It is a bedrock assumption for most of us in our roles as parents, educators, or individuals and should be equally applicable in our roles as Air Force officers. If an individual can be coerced or manipulated into small lapses of integrity, he must somehow consciously or subconsciously rationalize these acts. It is no accident that both integrity and integer are derived from the same Latin root and refer to a state of wholeness, something undivided. The individual who readjusts his concept and practice of integrity to allow and explain small lies is prone to readjust again or to so redefine his integrity that a large lie can slip by unrecognized or unchallenged.

The second postulate is more difficult to accept. It is that there are portions of Air Force policy and management procedures that encourage if not demand lapses in integrity. More specifically, they strike at the core of integrity and breed false official statements. (If this is too harsh, substitute "pencil whipping" for "false official statements.") Some of you accept this as self-evident. Those who do not are asked to accept it for the moment and evaluate it in the light of examples mentioned later in the article.

One benefit in explicitly recognizing the problem of internal erosion of integrity is a widening of the circle of those who must concern themselves with integrity. No longer do the exhorters and drafters of codes of ethics stand alone. Now all of those who design, implement, or manage policies and procedures have a piece of the action in fostering integrity. In addition, each officer has the opportunity if not the obligation to point out to his superiors those systems that erode integrity.

To provide these new "players" with a basis for action (and buttress the contention that they must act), I propose a five-question test to determine which Air Force policies and procedures are likely to erode integrity. These questions are to a large extent overlapping, but a "yes" answer to any of them indicates a potential problem.

1. Does the policy or procedure attempt to measure a complex reality by using oversimplified criteria?

For an example of oversimplified criteria, look at the Air Force weight-control program. This program seeks to eliminate "fat" blue-suiters. Yet it measures "fatness" by a weight/height/age table derived from life insurance policyholder statistics. As a result some individuals who are not fat by the table (because of greater age or smaller bones) look terrible in uniform by any subjective measure. Conversely, some who are fat according to the table are actually in superb physical condition and present an outstanding appearance in uniform. The existence of the table makes it difficult for commanders to lower the boom on those who are fat subjectively but don't fit the table. Since commanders must also deal with individuals who are "fat" according to the table but do not look fat, they are caught on both sides. Add to this the fact that subordinates perceive the gap between the criteria and reality and see the weight-control program as inequitable and unfair, which further increases the pressure. Yet we manage the program at the lowest level by written entries and signatures on training forms and then ensure emphasis and control by written reports up through the chain of command. The result is predictable: a tapestry woven of small lies, as commanders and training personnel "pencil whip" the problem.

Another example of oversimplified criteria can be found in the Air Force's approach to drug abuse. The Air Force does not want to enlist or commission drug abusers but is sophisticated enough to recognize that marijuana use is so prevalent among teenagers that we will inevitably take some entrants who have tried marijuana. We simplify the problem by dividing applicants into marijuana users and marijuana experimenters; then we further simplify it by defining an experimenter as one who has had four or fewer experiences, a user as one having five or more experiences. We require each applicant to write out the extent of his prior drug abuse and sign it, swearing that what he has written is true; this formula gives us a rapid and legal way to discharge him if he later turns out to have a worse history of drug abuse than he admitted to. The result is again predictable. Applicants who experimented with marijuana, or tried it solely due to peer pressure seven or ten times, are certain that they should be categorized as experimenters. Yet this simplified criterion forces them either to lie, in writing, about their past or virtually eliminates any opportunity to enter the Air Force. It would be folly to believe that some do not give in to the pressure and begin their Air Force careers with a written lie.

2. Does the policy or procedure ignore or contradict known reality?

This is not so rare as it might seem. One example was the old officer effectiveness report (OER) system, where the rating official knew that over ninety percent of officers were receiving an "absolutely superior" (9) rating. If he was honest in rating his subordinates and filled in the blocks that corresponded to the correct word picture, then most of them would fall under "effective and competent." Yet in doing so, he would be rating his subordinates so far below their peers as virtually to deny them any further promotions. In short, the real implications of the OER forced rating officials to sign false official statements and give inflated ratings of their subordinates.

Another instance can be seen in the policy that no entrants to undergraduate pilot training have ever experimented with marijuana, a policy implemented by having each applicant complete a written and signed history of his drug abuse. We know that UPT entrants are recent college graduates, and the pollsters tell us that about fifty percent of college students have tried marijuana at least once. Can we really believe that our written statement has screened out those who tried marijuana twice at age fifteen or once at age nineteen? Isn't it likely that for some we have added the requirement for one written lie to the other UPT requirements?

Anything we bother to measure in the Air Force should have some variation. If we measure it routinely or regularly, then we should be measuring at a level high enough to encounter that variation. Otherwise we are wasting precious Air Force and taxpayer assets in a fruitless task. Yet we still encounter areas where one hundred percent or very close to it is expected or accepted as a result. Where this occurs, either we should strengthen the test or look for signs that someone, either the test-taker or the test scorer, is lying. If NORS rates are 0, or the stan/eval pass-rate is one hundred percent, or every airman gets his five-level in OJT, it should be a source of concern rather than pride. Someone, somewhere, is probably lying. Then there is the question of random or inadvertent error. If crews must answer every question correctly on an emergency war procedures test before they go on alert, then we can bet that a small percentage will mismark an answer or misread a question from time to time. If they do not, then we have probably pressured someone, whether crews, scorers, or commanders, into a lie.

This may occur in the formula: If you __________ (fail one question on the test/don't buckle your seatbelt/etc.) then you_________(and your supervisor/commander/etc.) must report to your________ (commander/wing commander/etc.) by_________ (sundown/24 hours) to explain why and receive punishment. Regardless of formula, it raises a transgression from the normal run-of-the-mill error to the Air Force equivalent of mortal sin. This excessive zeal gets everyone's attention, but it also puts such pressure on the perpetrator and his commander that avoidance of the consequence (by written lie if necessary) becomes a most desirable course of action.

This is a favorite ploy for the staff officer, since he can use others' personal responsibility as an assurance that his project will succeed (or an excuse should it fail). The commander is a favorite target, since no staff agency is responsible for keeping things for which the commander is personally responsible at a reasonable level. On the mundane side, commanders are often asked to certify the length, priority, and necessity of AUTOVON/long distance phone calls or the immunization status of those in their command. In this and similar areas, they may only be able to maintain their integrity at the expense of their mission. If a commander is forced to choose between attention to mission at the price of certifying something he is unsure of and inattention to mission in order to investigate a minor matter, the Air Force loses either way. On the complex side, commanders may be asked to certify the exact placement of their personnel in a matrix of computer numbers that makes no earthly sense to them, or the exact position and status of each tail number on the flight line, or the average CEP of each pilot in the wing. Again, there is no reason to believe the commander can or should really be personally observing these things. If mission accomplishment is played off against personal certification, we can expect many, if not most, commanders to opt for mission accomplishment and turn a blind eye to personal certification. And, in the final analysis, we can expect a high level of false official statements.

Failure to pass these tests does not immediately condemn a management system or an evaluation system. Given the mission of the Air Force and the expense or potential effect of our tools (e.g., an AWACS or a nuclear weapon), there are areas where our management systems must be rigid and uncompromising and rely directly on the written word of a responsible officer. These are instances where it may be imperative to challenge integrity rather than foster it. What is important to the nation, the Air Force, and its officers is that they be clearly the exception and not the rule. If they are submerged in a deluge of other requirements for written certification, if they rely on a bedrock of integrity eroded by too many inconsequential challenges, then we have only ourselves to blame.

Air Command and Staff College

Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely content with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do, because he is still, in spite of all, the child of God.

Phillips Brooks