By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2014 – Evaluating the state of its
professionalism is a way for today’s military to pay tribute to those who have
served before and to keep faith with the American people, the Defense
Department’s senior ethics officer said here today.
Five weeks into her new position as Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel’s senior advisor for military professionalism, Navy Rear Adm. Margaret D.
“Peg” Klein discussed during remarks at a Surface Navy Association luncheon the
scope of her office’s mission and the importance of honoring the value of
military professionalism.
“When you think about what goes into military
professionalism, frequently the first word that comes to peoples’ mind is
ethics,” she said. Some people think about ethics from a compliance or Law of
Armed Conflict standpoint, she added, but she said her office’s charter is
all-encompassing.
The admiral said she has had discussions with academics and
practitioners as she has sought to examine the issues facing military
professionalism.
“We were energized because of the value of the profession
and [because] the honor that we pay to those who’ve gone before us is very
important,” she said. “We care deeply about the profession. We are
professionals -- what we do impacts the profession. It’s how we honor the
people who have gone before us, but I also want to talk about our collective
responsibility to those who come next.”
Klein touched on various topics relating to the question of
why an evaluation of military professionalism is necessary.
“As a profession,” the admiral said, “you could say that
we’ve been dead reckoning for a while, and that, perhaps, it’s time to take a
fix and have a closer look at our position.”
Klein said it would easy to say this examination has come
about in light of recent behavior and incidents that “grab headlines and causes
us to talk and maybe ask questions among ourselves.”
“But it’s more than that,” she added. “It’s about
leadership. That is what we all have in common. We are all leaders, whether in
civilian clothes or whether in the uniform of our country.” Regardless of
whether people wear a military uniform now or have done so previously, Klein
said, there is an “obligation as leaders to be stewards or custodians of this
profession.”
Klein noted that Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began extensively exploring the profession of arms
when he led the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.
“General Dempsey, when he was the head of Training and
Doctrine Command, spent a lot of time thinking and writing, and talking about
the profession,” she said. “He undertook a study of the profession, noting that
… ‘war has changed us, but we don’t yet know how,’” Klein said.
The chairman also had an understanding of the profession
that ancient Greek poet Homer wrote about in “The Iliad.”
“‘The Iliad’ is an ancient story about ethical conduct
during war,” Klein said. “That little microcosm inside of ‘The Iliad’ indicates
that the discussion about professionalism is not new, nor the questions that
we’re asking ourselves.”
The admiral noted the U.S. military has evaluated itself as
a profession dating back to the Civil War. After World War II, Vietnam, and the
end of the Cold War, Klein said, “we have re-evaluated who we are, and what we
stand for as a profession.”
Professions that are agile ask very fundamental questions,
the admiral said. “They evolve, they challenge assumptions, they reflect and
they grow, and not just in size,” she told the audience.
“But there’s still a bigger reason to ask questions,” Klein
added. “As a profession, we don’t exist because we’re a jobs program. We don’t
exist to perpetuate ourselves. We’re an instrument of national power, and we
take an oath to the Constitution. Every one of us, when we joined, we answered
a calling -- a calling that that oath represents.”
Therefore, Klein said, actions by service members are not
judged against whatever societal norm someone picks out and uses. “We’re judged
against that special trust and confidence that’s placed in us,” she said. “So
our actions -- good and bad -- reflect on the profession. … We have the
leadership role to carry out, [and] it’s that profession that we’re responsible
to.”
Hagel established the position she occupies, Klein said, so
someone could spend time thinking about the profession.
“So we can put all the programs and policies in place to say
that we don’t condone ‘X’ behavior,” she added, “but until each one of us
realizes that it’s our responsibility -- it’s our duty to eradicate these
behaviors from our profession -- they’ll continue to exist.”
Klein quoted Hagel in saying, “‘It’s the responsibly of all
of us -- all of us who asked for the trust and confidence of the American
people -- to ensure ethics and character are imbued in all our people.’”
As her office begins its work, Klein said, she and her staff
are trying to understand the scope of the issues and the underlying behaviors
from both ends of the age and experience spectrum.
“The work that we’re doing is about people,” Klein said.
“Who we promote, therefore, has to represent what we promote.”
“Why evaluate our profession?” she asked again. Part of it
is to honor those who served in the past, but it’s also about the future, Klein
said.
“It’s about the citizens we’ve taken an oath to protect, and
those citizens who provide their sons and daughters,” the admiral said.
“They’re the ‘why.’”
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