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ARTICLE 1 -- DEFENDING AMERICA
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Moral Courage is the First Commandment
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BY DAVID H. HACKWORTH
Napoleon was right on target when he said, "In war the moral is
to the
material as three to one."
Since Desert Storm, I've watched our Armed Forces go steadily
downhill. Yet
for 10 years, not one general or admiral has had the moral
courage to sound
off to the citizens of the republic about what's been going on.
Nor has one (and that includes Air Force Gen. Ronald Fogleman,
who quit not
over principles but for very personal, private reasons) stood
before
Congress and told the truth: It's not lack of funds that's
busting the
forces, but wrongheaded, ever-expanding missions like Bosnia and
Kosovo;
misguided, politically correct social engineering; and the
constant
lowering of training, discipline and leadership standards --
mistakes that
our warriors will pay for in blood on a future battlefield.
Has the moral courage from stand-up guys like Nathan Hale, John
Paul Jones
and Billy Mitchell been blown completely out of our military and
America?
Have these giants of moral resolve been replaced by people who
don't care
how they trample on values and principles, just as long as they
get to the
head of the line?
Even though the two-fisted straight-shooters seldom make it to
the top
anymore, I prefer to think moral courage in America is down but
not out.
It's true the slickies who put self and bottom-line first seem
to be
running America from the White House to Congress to virtually
every big
business in the land. Less those few, brave, family-owned
concerns that
haven't yet exchanged their values for fast-lane stock options.
I naively thought this sickness just prevailed in our military
but
gradually changed my mind because of the responses to a book I
wrote. Over
the years, I've received thousands of letters from folks in
every walk of
life in this country saying: What you described in "About Face"
as the
sickness that destroyed our military and caused us to lose in
Vietnam is
rampant across the board in the United States.
These letters bear witness that the same cancer that struck our
Vietnam-era
military now infects almost every American entity -- from Wall
Street to
education, from medicine to the media, from the police and fire
departments
to the unions, etc., etc., etc.
But these letters also convinced me that there are more than a
few good men
and women out there who aren't afraid to "Stand up and be
counted" -- once
a standard Army officer fitness-report rating question in the
pre-Vietnam
era, when speaking out was encouraged -- and fight for right
over wrong.
Take Air Force Maj. Sonny Bates. He recently single-handedly
took on the
Pentagon over anthrax. It was roll up your sleeves and take the
needle or
go to jail. When the Air Force leaned on him, he chose to take a
general
court-martial -- which in the military is about the same as
spitting in the
judge's face and expecting a fair trial. Married with three kids
and only
seven years from retirement, Bates had a lot to lose. Yet he
fought for
what he thought was right and steered through the anthrax flak
as smoothly
as he's flown his airplane during his brilliant career. And the
good news
is the brass backed down.
Another moral hero is Army sergeant David Gloer. After serving
in Korea
since 1994, he decided to retire. Petty people in his chain of
command
bumped back his paperwork, saying "no way." For absolutely no
reason, just
an uncaring bureaucracy doing its thing. After 20 years of
exceptional
service, 13 of those in a South Korea on perpetual war-footing,
a few jerks
arbitrarily told him to get lost. He pulled all plugs -- the
media,
Congress -- and even took his case to the Army chief of staff.
He fought
for what was right, and like Sonny Bates, he won. So Gloer's
retiring from
the Army with a smile and a positive thought: "All that rule are
not evil."
Moral leadership should be the top plank in the presidential
elections.
It's more important than Social Security or campaign reform.
Without the
right moral stuff, America is going to join Napoleon's France --
which
swapped the moral for the material and ended up at the bottom of
the heap.
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