Duty, Honor and Country
vs
Moral Conviction

When a nation's military force defies the policy of the state it serves, it loses its professional status and becomes an armed political body, as did the Praetorian Guard of the Romans. So, too, the soldier loses his professional status when, on personal moral grounds, he defies the policy of the nation he is sworn to serve.

The West Point motto, "Duty, Honor, Country," succinctly states the essential characteristics of military professionalism. The soldier's first loyalty is to his country, whose values and purposes he has solemnly sworn to uphold. The soldier's obligation to do his duty in the service of the state is uncompromising and has no reservations. His honor is the moral measure of duty faithfully performed, even at the risk of death, in the service of his country.

This meaning of military professionalism appears simple to fulfill, until the full implications are examined.

An obligation to serve the state to the "last full measure of devotion" has been stated as an absolute. Absolutes are rarely realizable as goals in human affairs and often create conflicts between values. For the soldier, the concept of professionalism can involve great moral choices, which are implicit in his functions and cannot be evaded by claiming an unlimited obligation to obey in the execution of his duty. An honest analysis of military professionalism must at least try to face the possible moral dilemma inherent in the nature of the profession. What is the moral responsibility of the professional soldier when he is called upon to execute a state policy to which he has a moral objection? What are the limits of professional obligation when duty is confronted with a conflicting moral imperative?

In terms of personal morality, the problem is quite simple, at least theoretically. The soldier, like all men, is an autonomous moral being. He cannot abdicate his moral responsibility and still retain his human integrity. No one can deny this principle. The issue is even broader, however, and involves another principle equally important.

The broader issue concerns the commitment to the political system itself which the professional serves. The nation can survive with dissent and, indeed, a healthy democracy needs the dissent of private citizens. The state can also thrive in the face of individual military dissenters. But enough people can add up to an establishment. Can a nation afford to have a military establishment which reserves to itself the right to determine the morality of governmental policy? No, it cannot and remain a democracy. The morality of public policy in a democracy must be determined by those chosen by the people to make policy, not by those charged with executing it. A group of guardians, like those in Plato's Republic, that determine the norms by which society is to be organized, would impose an unbearable burden upon our system of representative government.

There have been many examples of the consequences of military officers and establishments which have perceived their role as "defenders of the faith" or as guardians of the nation's "true" objectives. We may cite the example of French General Raoul Salan and certain of his fellow officers in Algeria. By reserving to themselves the right to judge the moral claim of state policy upon their military duty, they in fact challenged the system of government itself, which was also a value in its own right. The danger of praetorians is that it imperils the very values it seeks to protect. The paradox is due to a false division between the abstract idealization of the state and the operative realities of political government.

A passage from one of General Douglas MacArthur's speeches illustrates the point: "I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept that the members of our armed forces owe primary allegiance or loyalty to those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive branch of Government rather than to the country and its constitution which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous."

On the contrary, the duty of a professional officer, in practical terms, must be to his nation through its lawful government. The "nation" is a subjective abstraction, and is really what one thinks the national community should be in terms of his own values relative to the core values of his society. But the only legitimate manifestation of the nation with which we can deal objectively is its duly constituted government.

Thus, in our political system, the military officer must realize that he plays social and institutional parts, which are vital to government of the people. His mission itself serves a legitimate moral purpose: the right of the state to protect itself against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But the government, as the state's lawfully constituted authority, issues the marching orders.

The professional soldier cannot wear the uniform while challenging the moral validity of a state policy, which involves the performance of military duty. Refusing to support that policy would betray the trust of his professionalism. Just as the profession becomes an armed political force if it defies state policy, an officer loses his professional status when as an individual he defies state policy. If, as an individual moral being, he cannot accept as morally valid the policies of the nation he serves, and cannot support them with his actions, he must leave the military and seek to influence his government as a civilian. This is his right; indeed, his moral obligation. But he ceases to be a military professional when he no longer feels a sense of duty to obey the orders of the lawful government, regardless of his personal moral feelings.

Part of the predicament has thus far been obscured and must be clarified. What if the officer does choose to obey? Where is justice then? Does the government have a right to impose its will upon him?

In fact, the government does have the lawful right to coerce him under the terms of the "unlimited liability contract" which the officer accepted as an implicit condition of his commission. If the government does proceed to coerce him, the officer still has the right, if he so chooses, to sacrifice himself and his freedom, even his life, for his principles. It may seem to be a Hobson's choice: obey or go to jail. But that is his choice. We live in an imperfect world and cannot demand easy choices. If he chooses to obey, in spite of his moral dissent, he is placing his personal well being above his principles. And, if he loses his war, he may be hanged by his enemies for putting his soldier's duty above the victor's moral ideals.

Much of the discussion thus far has been centered on rather abstract considerations, far removed from the normal routine of military service. For most officers, a moral dilemma rarely arises. In any policy-making establishment there is constant debate which is accepted as normal and desirable, but this takes place legitimately within the processes of decision-making and makes the system work. The morality of the goals of policy normally is accepted as given, and most policy alternatives rarely demand a moral choice.

Military professionalism does not require the abdication of moral responsibility. It does require as a practical matter that a person's moral judgments be reconciled with service to the state if he is to serve it in a professional capacity. This can be determined only by the person himself. The professional itself, as a creature of the state, is a legal abstraction, and as such cannot take a moral stand. The individual cannot avoid it. He is a human being first, a professional second.

This fundamental fact was seen and expressed clearly by a soldier who paid dearly for maintaining his moral integrity and honesty: General Ludwig Beck, chief of staff of the German Army until purged by Chancellor Adolf Hitler. General Beck wrote in 1938: "History will indict the highest leaders of the Wehrmacht with blood-guilt if they do not act in accordance with expert and statesmanlike knowledge and assurance. Their duty of soldierly obedience finds its limit when their knowledge, conscience and responsibility forbid the execution of an order."

It has been the world's tragedy that, unlike General Beck, the majority of his fellow officers could feel justified in living up to a concept of professionalism which excused the soldier from moral responsibility. They rationalized their duty as basically to the army itself. The German officer corps' concept of professionalism led it to abdicate personal moral responsibility and to shift the burden of moral choice to the profession itself as a corporate body. But the corporate military institution itself cannot make moral judgments of state policy. Rather, the military is both the creation and the instrument of state policy, and subject to the state's authority.

Thus, at the Nuremberg trials, the German Army as an institution was not held responsible, but individual members of it were. Indeed, if a corporate body can exercise moral choice for its members, then these members forfeit their basic human responsibility. This concept of their professional corporate morality allowed the German officers to ignore the moral bankruptcy of the Nazi regime, and indeed serve it as their duty. Alan Bullock summed it up in Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1953): "The officer corps, intent only on preserving the privileged position of the Army and indifferent to what happened in Germany so long as Nazification stopped short of the military institutions of the country, could see no further than the ends of their own noses."

The U.S. commissioning oath is an unlimited liability contract that obliges the officer to defend the constitution against all enemies. There is no escape clause, since the military professionalism advocated here denies the officer the right as a soldier to determine who the enemy is or what the constitution is. These decisions are left to the civil institutions. The solder does not even have the right to be consulted. He may be asked to advise – it is his function, but he must consent – it is his professional duty. Any departure from this discipline is a denial of the professional trust.

The officer cannot, simultaneously in his capacity as a military professional, act as a private citizen freely exercising U.S. constitutional rights and also exercise personal moral choice with regard to national policy requiring military execution. Yet his basic humanity and humane society both forbid the officer to evade personal moral responsibility for his acts. Thus, there is a dilemma and a risk in being a military professional. The demands of duty and morality are both based on absolutes. No formula can solve their inherent conflict, because to the military professional, duty itself must be one of his moral values.

The contemporary relevance of this problem is illustrated by an editorial in the New York Times for 13 April 1967:

No military unit could operate effectively if its officers and men reserved to themselves the right of private judgment as to whether force waspolitically justified in each particular circumstance. In a free society officials are elected to make political decisions, including such vital ones as the declaration of – or, in the present case, entrance into – a war. If (an officer) lived in a totalitarian state like Nazi Germany, his situation could, as a practical matter, be much worse, but his moral claim would be much stronger. If he were a civilian protecting against the draft on grounds of conscience, his situation would also be different. Not even the most liberal government can abdicate the responsibility of defending itself to the private judgment of its citizens. And a Fortiori no armed force could function in this way. If the claims of individual conscience have no recognizable limit, the political result is anarchy. No member of the armed forces may pick and choose among the orders he will obey.

Certainly, as a practical matter, "no member of the armed forces may pick and choose among the orders he will obey." But to assert this an absolute denies the humanity of the man in uniform. This humanity is the absolute, not the uniform. The German officers who were convicted as war criminals at Nuremberg were judged, correctly, not as professionals but as men who were morally autonomous.

The claims of moral conscience cannot be denied, even if silenced by rationalization; and personal moral responsibility is inescapable in civilized society, regardless of the consequences. In the ethics of military professionalism, devotion to duty is paramount, the core of honorable service to the country. But the human being who wears the uniform must live within his conscience's moral universe. Hopefully, the demands of duty and conscience can be reconciled; if not, then choices must be made. However, in cases of conflict, a choice in favor of either duty or morality will not excuse a person from the consequences of offending against the responsibilities of the other alternative. The dilemma is uncompromising. Fortunate is he whose principles and interests coincide. Fortunate especially is the soldier who serves a government which has moral integrity.

Lt. Col. Zeb B. Bradford Jr., Infantry, in Vietnam was aide to Gen. Creighton B. Abrams. This essay resulted from his studies while teaching a seminar on national security problems in the department of social sciences at the U.S. Military Academy. He is now a student at the Command and General Staff College.

From ARMY Magazine, September 1968, pages 42 through 44. Copyright 1968 by Association of the U.S.Army. Reproduced at CGSC by special permission and may not be further reproduced in whole or in part without express permission of the copyright owner.