Document created: 6 February 03
Air University Review, March-April 1977

Commitment to Integrity

Editor's Note Chaplain Meade's address "Commitment to Integrity" was originally presented at Corona West, the semiannual meeting of Air Force generals, in October 1976.

THE OTHER night I woke up from a sound sleep thinking frantically about this meeting and the kinds of presentations that would be made. I found myself asking, "What does a priest from Boston have to say to the semiannual meeting of the senior stockholders of the Air Force?" I must confess I was tempted to assume an uncharacteristic posture of humility. I would make an appropriately brief and demure "state of the Chaplain art" pitch and run for an inconspicuous seat. Then I remembered an old Jewish story.

In the story a learned rabbi, a splendid-voiced cantor, and a simple synagogue janitor were preparing for the Day of Atonement. The rabbi beat his breast and said, "I am nothing; I am nothing." The cantor also beat his breast and said with great feeling, "I am nothing; I am nothing." The janitor, genuinely affected by the repentent grief of the others, also beat his breast and cried, "I am nothing; I am nothing." Startled, the rabbi looked up and, with a voice full of scorn, said to the cantor, "So, look who thinks he's nothing."

So I've elected to come without apology, wearing my spiritual sombrero as the senior clergyman in the Air Force community, to share a concern that I am convinced is absolutely critical to all of us. But I will be cautious about the language I choose in light of a prayer I once heard: "Lord, make all my words gracious and tender today, for tomorrow I may have to eat them. "My concern: Commitment to integrity.

Integrity is a nice safe word. It shares a special place with words like brotherhood, motherhood, peace, honor, justice. Run them up the flagpole and everybody salutes. They make us feel good, clean, and 100 percent American.

The problem is to convert the word integrity from being just a flag for rallies--to empower the word by giving it real lively flesh and bones--our flesh and bones. That can be a long and painful process. And it is always an individual process.

LET ME suggest first that the time has come for the reassertion of integrity as a lifestyle for leaders in every part of our national life. In my opinion it serves no value to chronicle or catalogue again the details of our national scandals and wrong-doing--except to say, in its tragedy I believe we will find a light of renewal.

Another observation: Bill Moyers, whose name is familiar to us, spent a year visiting, speaking with, and most especially listening to the voices of Americans from border to border, shore to shore. At about the halfway mark of his voyage, this significant observation was made in one of his broadcasts: "I've travelled over 10,000 miles so far this year and listened to a lot of people. Most of them have one thing in common. Black or white, North or South, they feel diluted. They feel like flotsam floating down some polluted river and disappearing into the ocean with nobody giving a damn . . . . " Diluted--nobody gives a damn--where is our integrity, our personal and our national wholeness?

One of my predecessors was fond of telling about visiting in the home of another chaplain. It was dinner time, and the 10-year-old son was called in from play to wash his hands. "But I just washed them a while ago," he protested. The mother was sure of her ground. "Even though you can't see any dirt, your hands are covered with germs. Now go wash them!" Groaning, the boy marched to the sink and washed. Then clean, he moved to the table, sat down, and picked up a fork to eat. "Just a minute, son," the father said. "You know we always pray before we eat." With a sigh, the boy dropped his fork and endured the prayer. As the food was being passed, my predecessor heard the boy mumbling to himself, "Germs and Jesus--germs and Jesus. That's all you ever hear around this house, and I've never seen either one of them."

And that's the tragedy of integrity. It's a magic word we hear again and again. But to the serious observer of our national life, integrity as a total way of life gets harder and harder to see. Yet we need integrity. Man needs boundaries, man needs treasured landmarks, man needs revered sacred signs. 

Harold Lamb, in his life of Alexander the Great, described the consternation, the terror and dismay, that swept through the Greek army following Alexander across Asia Minor when the members learned that they had marched clear off the maps. The only maps were Greek maps, and they showed only a small part of Asia Minor. There were no guideposts to the mysteries ahead, and men need unmistakable landmarks by which to be guided--they then and we now.

Given all our talk about "Future Shock," some things never change. An eighteenth century businessman traveling from New York to London may have needed weeks for the trip, while his counterpart today arrives in hours. But on arrival, they both face the same questions: Do I remain honest in my business dealings? Do I treat people as things or as persons? Do I remain faithful to my wife? Do I tell the truth, whatever the cost? 

What is most important in our lives is precisely that which does not change--our familiar quest for justice, friendship, love, truth, order, faith, integrity--the human constants. They are, and must continue to be, the measure of all change.

Perhaps it would be helpful to ask ourselves what it is we're talking about when we speak of integrity. The Oxford English Dictionary describes integrity as " . . . the condition of having no part or element taken away or wanting; undivided or unbroken state; material wholeness, completeness, entirety." Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary adds another dimension: " . . . moral soundness, honesty, uprightness. "

That is to say, integrity is not just truthtelling, or kindness, or justice, or reliability. Integrity is the state of my whole life, the total quality of my character, and it is witnessed by the moral soundness of my responses in every life situation.

Integrity will resist the subtle forms of ethical relativism that blur the issue of right or wrong in favor of the functional or pragmatic attitude that asks only what will work. When what works is always right, then performance becomes the measure of everything. Right and wrong get lost, and integrity disappears.

Integrity suffers when leaders demand or expect an exaggerated personal or mission loyalty from their subordinates, the kind of loyalty that keeps people from telling the truth, or at least discourages them from it. Integrity suffers when we become obsessed with image and try to support a dream world that differs from the real world in significant ways. Integrity suffers when the drive for success blunts our ethical sensitivity, when the personal need to achieve becomes more important than moral responsibility.

IN SOME circles there is the reasonable belief that what we need is a reissue of our Code of Ethics--with fresh new words and phrases, more clout and more persuasion --or at least some new device that might rally us to a new start; ... a document or charter that might light fires within and bring commitment without. I very much believe we need such public documents, but in my opinion it is simply not enough to evoke change.

 Perhaps I might illustrate this with a story: 

"A wealthy and eccentric Texas oil man built an Olympic-size swimming pool and filled it with crocodiles. He was so delighted with it that he decided to have a christening party to which everyone for miles around was invited. While the guests were enjoying cocktails on the patio around the pool, the oil man announced over the public address system that if any unmarried young male would swim the length of the pool and survive the crocodiles, he would reward him with a choice of three things: a million dollars, a 10,000-acre ranch, or his daughter's hand in marriage.

"No sooner had the oil man made the announcement when a young man hit the water. The churning between him and the crocodiles was nothing short of spectacular. But to everyone's utter amazement, moments later the young man pulled himself out at the other end of the pool without a scratch on him.

"The oil man quickly ran to where the young man was standing. 'I don't believe it; I just don't believe it! There's no way anyone can survive that pool with all those crocodiles, but here you are with not a scratch on you. Well! I'm a man of my word, and I promised you one of three things, so which will you have: a million dollars, a 10,000-acre ranch, or my daughter's hand in marriage?'

"'I don't want any of them,' retorted the young man. 'All I want is the name of the bastard who pushed me into the pool!' "

Now that's the essence of ethics. The young man could not accept the reward because it never was his intention to be a contestant.

Codes of honor are proclamations of our belief, and to that extent they are useful and needed. But unless the message is interiorized and becomes a part of us, then it will be of no more value than a moral pronouncement.

Integrity rests on expectation. Moral soundness, honesty, uprightness, wholeness ought to be continually obvious in all of us. When seen in us, they ought not to be a surprise, but a reasonable expectation. Remember when our prisoners of war returned home. They became national heroes, and rightly so. What was it that pleased and excited every American about them? It was their obvious patriotism, their heroism, their loyalty to one another, their open religious faith in short, their integrity. In spite of everything, they maintained their wholeness. And as a nation we were proud because our expectations of American fighting men were met. We had expected the sunrise and rejoiced because it was there.

Integrity is not something one can get. It cannot simply be added to one's life. The problem with professional codes is that they have a way of becoming ends in themselves rather than creators of integrity.

A prominent fund-raiser has a rule for all of his campaigns. He tells those involved in a fund-raising effort, "Don't set a minimum, the dollar goal will be met. The problem is that minimums have a way of becoming maximums." And so it is with codes of ethics--minimums have a way of becoming maximums.

Karl Menninger says that integrity means being "weller-than-well." It isn't enough just to be well. The man of integrity is undivided man, collected and gathered man.

If I am a man of integrity, I know what I really value in life. I am in touch with my intentions and know where my life is headed. There will be visible congruence between my actions and my values. You can test my values by my actions.

But how do we go about achieving that lofty and urgent goal? One of the hard lessons we're trying to deal with about the current crop of young people is that they've got values that differ radically from ours. They're what some educators are calling "street-wise."

Many of these young people do not find their identity in institutions, as most of us have. When they become a part of the military institution, the Air Force is simply not their primary loyalty. It is where they earn their living. Moral and spiritual values are less important than self-realization--self-fulfillment. Identity is found outside the institution and its values.

Now that I have stated the problem, I am desperately waiting for the solution, but instead of nice, packaged glib answers, I only hear more questions. There is simply no magic formula. The commitment to integrity resists legislation or edict. .. and yet I believe there is light in the tunnel.

We have some prized and choice educational resources available. Given the values of today's youth, should we not muster the resources of Air Training Command, Air University, Air Force Chaplains, and our chaplain and social agencies in a massive and continuing commitment to moral education? I believe the strategy is sound and correct.

IN the film version of The Royal Hunt of the Sun, the famous explorer Pizarro and his men are confronted by a deep abyss in the mountains of Peru. Between two peaks stretches a filmsy rope bridge. It is the only way to go on. Even the bravest of the party tremble with fear. Pizarro slowly looks over his disheveled band. In the rear--immobilized by fear and apprehension--stand the clergy. Sizing up the situation, Pizarro issues his order: "The Church goes first."

Although the movie audiences inevitably howl with laughter at the sight of the men in robes scrambling out across the bridge, the image should speak powerfully to our understanding of leaders.

Someone has to lead the way. We are--we must be--the people on the bridge. Integrity cannot be ordered, but it can be exemplified and imitated. Our commitment to integrity leads the way for others. Our evangelization for integrity leads the way for others. There is no other way to get our people across.

Our commitment must be persistent and patient and never ending, and it must be done--it must be made to work.

Washington, D.C.

To the Editor:

Major William E. Gernert's article "On Fostering Integrity" (AU Review, September-October 1976) provides a hurricane of fresh air on a topic long torpid by the heavy atmosphere of high-sounding preachments and "good old days" nostalgia.

His identification of our integrity problem with "our collective failure to stop the erosion of integrity caused by official Air Force management systems and procedures" is both insightful and helpful. Helpful because he foregoes the tempting trap of blaming "the system" but rather points to "our collective failure." Like Pogo he recognizes "we have met the enemy and he is us." 

Integrity requires the courage of sometimes saying no--or at least a persistent asking "why?"--from all of us to others of us who institute unexamined regulations that often require "now in" solutions for both the system and personal integrity. Sincerely

RICHARD D. MILLER, Chaplain, Colonel, USAF
Installation Chaplain
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio

Contributor

Chaplain, Major General, Henry J. Meade (B.A., St. John's Seminary) is the Chief of Chaplains, USAF. After six years as a priest in the Boston Archdiocese, Chaplain Meade came to active duty as an Air Force chaplain in 1957. For twelve years he served worldwide and came to the Office of the Chief of Chaplains in 1969, where he assumed his present position in August 1974. He has received numerous awards for his service to church and community, including the Four Chaplains Award and the Civilian International Award.

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