Dear General/Admiral,
Although
the thrust of this letter applies mostly to the United States Air Force Academy
(USAFA), themes apply to all of the Service Academies.
Two matters prompted this
letter: the USAFA Superintendent’s
Mitchell Hall balcony speech and West Point’s Spenser Rapone. The USAFA Superintendent mentioned to all
those in attendance during his speech that “this is our institution.” I agree.
This is why I am compelled to write to you. As a graduate, the purpose for my letter is
to express concern about the Academy culture and its perceived departure from
the core values of integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all
that we do. I contend this is happening
because Academy leaders are losing focus on an American warrior ethos and its
essence in the profession of arms.
American
Warrior Ethos
Academy cultures should be
grounded in an American warrior ethos. The
singular and unique concept of an American warrior ethos is that it does not
beget warmongering; rather, it stands watch for threats against liberty and
justice and defends against tyranny. Beyond
armed conflict, an American warrior ethos represents a morally responsible
citizen who understands the central idea of American liberty, remains
apolitical in light of cultural evolution, and is prepared to do the right
thing for justice over injustice.
Profession
of Arms
In terms of the profession
of arms, professionalism calls for a commitment to standards of excellence that
requires integrity and service before self.
The four-year class system was originally designed to inculcate this
understanding. The academies have
sacrificed this aspect of the warrior ethos in favor of individualism and
feel-good support between the classes.
As I have discovered in recent discussions with sponsored cadets,
friendships are more important than honor.
This is not to deny the
importance of authentic friendship. A
warrior ethos requires honor and toughness that chooses justice over injustice
and that has the capacity and commitment to tolerate great adversity. In the USAFA balcony
speech, to suggest diversity as the
Academy’s central value merely mimics prevailing political correctness. I will discuss this at greater length
later. For now, however, in terms of
professionalism and the capacity to endure adversity, should there be any
surprise that America’s Navy Seal Team 6 has earned such a noble reputation?
National
Character and Leadership Symposium
Developing American military
leaders of character, firmly grounded in the Air Force core values (integrity,
service before self, and excellence in all that we do) in support of a warrior
ethos, is important enough that former graduate Classes have invested in this
process through financial support of the annual National Character and
Leadership Symposium (NCLS). Each year,
the Academy planners invite an interesting set of speakers based on a symposium
theme. Listening to the stories of
courage, valor and endurance, and interacting with the story-tellers makes a
powerful impression on cadets and challenges their understanding of truth and
justice in a free society.
How might the Academy
experience in general and the NCLS in particular restore a warrior ethos in the
profession of arms?
The
Issue
Let me begin with the
Academy’s mission. “The mission of the
United States Air Force Academy is to educate, train, and inspire men and women
to become leaders of character, motivated to lead the United States Air Force
in service to our nation.”[1] Service to our nation implies possible combat
and a corresponding need for a warrior ethos.
A warrior ethos represents a set of virtues. Virtues such as temperance, prudence, courage,
fortitude, loyalty, obedience, and so forth have long been understood
to be critical in achieving victory in a just war. Thus, the cultivation of these virtues should
be the central feature of the Academy experience; moral decision-making and ethical
behavior require virtue, especially when wielding great destructive power in a
just war.
In the mid-1800s, Alexis
de Tocqueville recognized virtuous behavior as a uniquely American trait and
called this phenomenon “habits of the heart.” What is the basis of the virtue
that shapes and compels morally responsible behavior, whether as a husband or
wife, father or mother, neighbor, or a warrior?
This is not a new societal need or phenomenon. We had virtuous people defeat an oppressive
world class power in order to found a new nation based on a creed that all
persons are created equal and that they are endowed by a Creator with inalienable
rights to life, liberty, and property.
We had virtuous people fight a civil war with the cost of over 600,000
casualties to overcome the sin of slavery.
We had virtuous people liberating oppressed people in two great world
wars, and so forth. These great
endeavors were no accident. They
represented our American creed and clearly demonstrated “habits of the
heart.” These virtues were taught by
parents, ministers, coaches, and teachers.
This teaching was grounded in philosophy and America’s historical
Judeo-Christian tradition. I do not think it a stretch to claim that our
yearning for truth (whether philosophical or theological) benefits from a deep
and enduring tradition. Tradition
implies time-tested approximations of truth.
Without truth there can be no knowledge or justice.
Implications
America is
experiencing a cultural evolution in terms of moral values and the source and
legitimacy of those values. One week the
mainstream media celebrates Hugh Hefner for championing the sexual
revolution. A week later, Harvey Weinstein
becomes a national scapegoat for a lack of restraint during this
revolution. With the influx of secular
humanism, developing great momentum
in the 1960s, motivations for serving in our armed forces have become somewhat
blurry. There are a growing number of
individuals permeating American society and its institutions who have no need
for accountability to a greater power, to include our Service Academies. For many, service has become more of a career
than a calling, and the moral compass is moral relativism, a central feature of
secular humanism—whatever it takes to advance.
A recent presentation by the new Director for Strategic Communication
demonstrated the Academy’s effort to “brand” the institution. Nowhere in this presentation was there any
mention of a warrior ethos. It looked
like a pitch for recruiting students to a prestigious campus that (a) appeals
to their individualism, (b) pays homage to technology (as prophesied in Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World) , and (c) just
so happens to require uniforms.
As
another example of moral relativism, I want to address a recent event that is
somewhat delicate. Having been a “tree
in the forest” for 34 years and now retired and a relative outside observer, I now
see the Academy through hearsay and what I read or hear in the news. So, I hope the observation and feedback I am
now offering may be received with an open mind.
I
first became aware of racial slurs at the Academy Prep School through our local
news media. It went viral. My first questions were: Who would write such things? Why would they do it? Who photographed the writing and posted it to
social media? The “hands up, don’t
shoot” meme immediately came to mind--a false report that many still believe to
be true, perpetuating a lot of the racial tension that currently exists.
Once
the P-School slurs went viral, it appears the USAFA Superintendent was compelled
to address the issue. I respect the
swiftness and tone of moral authority (and it was widely praised among my contemporaries). The short speech
also went viral (posted on YouTube by the Academy; as well as generating
activity mostly on CNN as well as CBS and NBC). The emphasis
on diversity as a mandated value reflects more political correctness than a simple
civic virtue of respect for human dignity.
Many people know that “the value of diversity” incorporates behaviors or
life styles that are not consistent with other traditional values, which sets
up a moral conflict for many of these individuals. Unfortunately, organizations that promote
traditional family values, for instance, are labeled “hate groups” by the
Southern Poverty Law Center. To overcome
this conflict, the institution established policies of “zero tolerance” regarding
discriminatory (and sexual harassment) behavior. While the First Amendment protects free
speech, even when it is contrary to public sentiment, it is the policy that restricts
such behavior. When young Americans
voluntarily choose to join the military, they understand that they give up some
freedom to become a member of the profession of arms. Commanders have no choice in enforcing such
policy. Those who willfully violate the
policy are held accountable. To “moralize” beyond this point (which, in
my opinion, the balcony speech clearly did), risks implying one’s own biases
when it comes to “political values.”
This is a fundamental violation of the apolitical nature of America’s
warrior ethos.
The command
“if you can’t treat someone with respect and dignity, get out” made the hair on
the back of my neck stand up. This
command essentially proclaimed “there are limits to diversity, and if you do
not understand what those limits are, then I do not respect you and I will not
treat you with dignity.” The
Superintendent drummed up the national backdrop of Charlottesville, Ferguson, the
NFL, and so forth. These national icons
have now become the bellwether landmarks for political correctness. The national narrative in these cases is not
consistent with actual truth. The
narrative is based more on folklore and what special interest groups want to believe. And, as the USAFA Superintendent discovered
during his interviews with CNN, this
particular episode was nicely teed up to criticize our commander-in-chief. For members of the military, public contempt
for the commander-in-chief is a court-martial offense (this is more serious
than violating a “zero tolerance” policy).
The balcony speech and CNN
interviews essentially achieved this end.
More
seriously, the balcony speech reminded me of F.A. Hayek’s warning in a chapter
with the title, “The End of Truth” in his book, The Road to Serfdom. Here is
what Hayek observed during the regimes of Russian and European totalitarianism
in the early 1900s:
The
most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward
which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those
ends. To make a totalitarian system
function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work
for the same ends. It is essential that the people should come to regard them as their own
ends. Although the beliefs must be
chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a
generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner
wants [italics added for emphasis])
I
hope many of our leaders will take the time to more deeply reflect on this
particular event, within the context of the national narrative and the Academy's "new
environment" designed to shape these young men and women into leaders of character, in order to
realize that we can also project slurs against those young men and women who
bring traditional worldviews from a cross section of society. Slurs are pejorative
words. While we are very careful not to
use the N-word, our politically correct society has developed a whole new set
of slurs to demean those individuals that are not welcome in the diversity club: evangelical, racist, xenophobe, Islamaphobe,
misogynist, extremist, and so forth.
Regarding
the P-School slurs, we now know the answers to my questions about who would do
such a thing, why would they do it, and who would upload images to social
media. With this new information
and the Superintendent’s reluctance to mollify his balcony performance, this
episode now joins the “hands up, don’t shoot” folklore.
Was the
balcony speech a missed opportunity to truly advance respect for human dignity
in the unique American pluralistic society?
There is too much “anti-America” vitriol sucking the oxygen out of the
room. Combined with a rabid press that
is hell-bent on destroying the current President (over 90% coverage is negative;
and arguably, he represents a threat to socialist ideology/forces), our nation
needs courageous leaders to keep our fledgling leaders focused on the idea of
America.
What
would have been the balcony speech impact had the perceived “wrong-doing” been
rebuked without demeaning others? It is
understood that individuals who have violated policy will be held
accountable. This then could have been
an unemotional segue to reflecting on what makes America the “shining city on a
hill,” or to comprehend what
28-year-old Abraham Lincoln understood in his speech at the Springfield Young
Men’s Lyceum
(especially in light of the Superintendent’s references to Ferguson, Charlottesville,
and the NFL). This approach is not
without precedent. For example, a month
before the end of the American Revolutionary War, General Washington was made
aware of a widely circulated anonymous letter complaining that officers had not
been paid for the nearly eight years of waging war. The anonymous author encouraged officers to
leave their posts and even to consider a military coup. On March 16, 1783, Washington assembled his
officers to address the issue. While
rebuking the anonymous letter, he did not demean the officers. He inspired them to stay the course. Eric Metaxas observes in his book, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty,
“Washington’s language is a far cry from anything we hear today. I am not referring to his lofty and ennobling
style of speech…But far more important is his use of specific words and phrases
like ‘reputation,’ ‘patient virtue,’ ‘dignity,’ ‘glory,’ and ‘sacred honor.’” Since our Academies play a critical role in
producing leaders of character, understanding the occasional strategic opportunities
our institutional leaders have to inspire these young men and women toward
excellence is also critical.
Speaking
of diverse worldviews, many Americans have either lost an understanding of, or
have not been exposed to, the founders’ idea of America (i.e., individual
liberty, limited government, private property, and a capitalistic free market) and
how it was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Amazingly, a year ago, during a conversation
with a Fourth Classman, I asked what he knew about communism. He responded, “What is it?” I explained that when I was a 4-degree
(freshman), I was anticipating combat in Vietnam against the spread of communism
(i.e., an ideology based on collective liberty, a strong central government, no
private property, and a government-controlled economy); and that for most of my
30-year career, I was prepared for the possibility of a large-scale or thermonuclear
war against the communist threat of the Soviet Union (and the Warsaw Pact) during
what has been called the Cold War. I
described the hundreds of millions killed under Lenin, Stalin, Chairman Mao,
and other communist leaders. Now, we
read about Army Second Lieutenant Spencer Rapone, an open communist at West
Point and now serving on active duty. In my own experience as an academic, our
public schools and universities have a very strong undercurrent of Marxist
thinking, centered on Marx and Engels’ 1848 Communist Manifesto calling for the
liberation of the oppressed. It also
demands erasing history. Marx wrote, “In bourgeois society, the past dominates the
present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past.”
History
has recorded the dangers of this thinking; yet, (a) our younger generations
have not been exposed to it (e.g., 1 in 5 Millennials think Joseph Stalin was a
hero) and (b) we allow its
expression because of our tolerance for the freedoms codified in our First
Amendment. In the spirit of “selectively”
celebrating diversity, we are allowing our society to become vulnerable to what
our commissioning oath refers to as a domestic threat.
America (and the Western world) faces a potentially existential
foreign and domestic threat: militant Islamism. To call this out risks being labeled an
Islamophobe because it is not deemed “politically correct.” Despite the advance of secular humanism, our
nation still places a premium on tolerance of religious pluralism, to include
atheism. Given this liberty, addressing
the Islamic sacred texts and their use in justifying violent jihad mandates a
national level conversation. Dr. M.
Zuhdi Jasser,[17]
a champion for modernizing Islam for moderate Muslims in reconciliation with a
secular government, was nominated as a guest speaker for the 2018 NCLS; yet was
not accepted. Dr. Jasser, at the risk of
personal threats, has had the courage to advance reforms that are consistent
with a secular constitutional republic.
Is it possible that a “presumed religious” speaker was deemed
incongruent with a secular humanist approach to teaching moral foundations and
ethical orientations? How does a moral
nation deal with a militant religion if it refuses to examine it? Is there not some room for reason in
understanding and managing an apparent conflict of values?
I
contend the NCLS speaker selection has been skewed by a heightened sensitivity
toward “diversity-oriented” speakers with a reluctance to entertain religious
liberty speakers. For example, I infer
from that pattern of speaker selections that the current Center for Character
and Leadership Development (CCLD) faculty and staff represent a secular
humanist perspective. Their focus is based
on theory and empirical evidence from psychology and sociology
disciplines. They appear to consider
philosophical and religious perspectives as too metaphysical and obsolete. Yet, we ignore the actual evidence of a
militant Islamism (see for example the data collected on over 32,000 separate
attacks since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack at http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/).
A
Way Forward
Our
Service Academies should not represent a regression to the mean in terms of
societal values. This would be
incongruent with the core value of striving for excellence in all that we do. The goal for character development is to
produce leaders with impact within the Air Force and their communities as
citizens. Acknowledging the role of
philosophy or religion in our society is not a violation of the so-called
“Establishment Clause.” While USAFA has
addressed legitimate instances of proselytizing, it comes in different forms,
to include “religious” by an evangelical Commandant of Cadets and the
“anti-religious” by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. There is no evidence of an institutional
attempt to “establish” a religion. To
the contrary, there may be an unwitting institutional reaction (i.e.,
capitulation to anti-religious threats) to eliminate philosophy and religion as
legitimate sources of moral development.
Within 10 years following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia,
religion was deliberately and methodically removed from the entire society in
submission to a Marxist philosophy. On
the other hand, Nazism in Germany initially justified societal reforms in the name
of religion[18]
before morphing into an atheistic totalitarian regime, possibly reflecting
similar justifications for violent Islamic jihad. How does a free nation facilitate the
essential character development to avoid these manifestations if it does not
have the courage and capacity to examine the dynamics that led to these
totalitarian regimes? Even before such an examination, it is absolutely
critical that our future leaders be solidly grounded in our own history and the
principles and concepts related to a Constitutional Republic.
Conclusion
The Academy in general and the NCLS in particular have
incredible potential to be exemplars in character development. Those involved in its planning have a moral
duty to encourage content that does not unnecessarily constrain the full range
of inquiry that underwrites character development. Character development demands critical
thinking in response to a full set of ideas—from the bizarre to the brilliant. We owe it to current and future American
generations to expand the range of inquiry through a classical liberal arts
education, to include mathematics, science, history, literature, religion, philosophy,
and so forth. This is the essential
grounding that shapes and inspires the American warrior ethos—and the singular
purpose of a Service Academy.
Very respectfully,
Gadfly
Susannah Heschel, The Aryan
Jesus: Christian Theologians and the
Bible in Nazi Germany. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
