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Morality: A Military Necessity

This is the first of a series of posts on the necessity of morality in the armed forces.

by Jim Wilson, U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1950
Vincit qui se vincit
"He conquers who conquers himself."
Introduction

Forty years is a long time to remember. However, in the early fifties we left San Diego for WesPac. The ship was a long hull Sumner-class destroyer.

We had eighteen "boots" aboard. We (probably the captain) decided that these young men needed to be protected, and should be informed of the facts of life. It was a three- pronged effort. The exec talked to the men in a fatherly sort of way about their mothers, their sisters, their hometown girlfriends, and their wives. This nostalgia was to protect them from waywardness.

An "assigned" chaplain talked with them about absolute morality and sin. And finally, the medical officer and the corpsman taught them about condoms and "past event cleansing."

After this thorough instruction we arrived at Pearl Harbor, where all the old salts took the boots down to Hotel Street in Honolulu, got them drunk, and got each of them a woman. The training had left out the effects of peer pressure.

Back in the 1940s there was a movie produced by the Navy where the hero, a young seaman nicknamed "Chicken," stayed a virgin until he met a very wholesome girl. He fell in love. He was in shock and did not believe it when he found out he had contracted a venereal disease from her. The message was that if you could get VD from a good girl, how much more from a prostitute.

Later, in the '50s (post-Korea), there were letters to congressmen complaining that officers in the U.S. Navy were getting "shacked up" with Asian women in the Far East. The congressmen complained to CNO, who then put out the word to Seventh Fleet to pass on a message to the officers of the Seventh Fleet -- the substance of the message was to “knock it off.” I was TAD to CARDIVFIVE TF77 at the time. The message from Seventh Fleet was clear and unambiguous, i.e. that officers of the Seventh Fleet would not "shack up."

After that very strong message there was a follow-up message from Seventh Fleet, which went something like this, "Ref my 1232400Z. Shacking up is defined as 30 days or longer." There was great laughter from the staff when this was read.

Later, in the 60's, there came down from the top a requirement to teach "moral leadership." The Leadership Department at the Naval Academy had this given to them as an assignment (as well as every other unit in the U.S. Navy). What was the problem? We all knew what "leadership" was, yet none of us had a definition of "moral." If we had a definition, we were not willing to put it into print, much less teach it. The result was a great deal of equivocation which did not result in teaching much of anything.

Moral Casualties

The Navy has really worked at staying operational and functional. We have known that venereal disease has been a major cause of physical casualties, which has had a major effect on the operational readiness of some units. Pregnancy is now having a similar effect.

All of this we have adjusted to, and have figured these problems into the formula on how to stay operationally ready. We provide medical officers, corpsmen, and hospitals. We also recruit and train a certain percentage more to offset the number of casualties.

We cannot legislate against the three to ten thousand prostitutes in certain foreign ports. We can make separate quarters for men and women on active duty. But unless we can define and teach morality, and then provide the motivation and power to live according to the definition, we have to settle for a periodically adjusted formula to keep our crews physically operational. We can adjust to this problem, doing the same in this situation as we would when we receive casualties from an enemy.

However, there is a far greater problem related to this, and that is the morale problem. Morale cannot be measured quantifiably (10%, 20% of the crew, etc.). It normally affects 100% of the crew. Morale can be high or low in any single unit, but the whole unit is involved. At least at one time, a primary duty of the CO was the morale of the crew.

We cannot send 100% of the crew to a hospital for a cure for their low morale, nor can we recruit and train replacements for 100% of the crew. Morale has to be kept high, or if it is always low, we relieve the skipper -- not the crew. But the morale of the crew is directly connected to the morality of the crew.

Comments

Doug Powell said…
Amen🙏

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