Why Officers Live in Bigger Houses

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

-Aristotle

Military commissioned officers are provided with better housing, significantly more pay, and greater authority than the enlisted personnel they lead. The privileges officers enjoy come with ownership for all that occurs or fails to occur under an officer’s watch. These privileges also obligate officers to do what is right even at the risk of losing their career. Although all military personnel are expected to exhibit moral courage, the ones who get paid the most and given the most should exhibit the most moral courage.

Risk Avoidance is Rewarded. The United States military prides itself on the high ethical standards it expects military personnel to possess. Having high ethical standards means doing what is right in all situations including counselling, applying judgment to policy, whistle-blowing, or fighting in combat. However, military officers are conditioned to not take risk since it almost never brings reward off the battlefield--at least in the Marine Corps (as a retired Marine, I cannot speak with authority about any of the other services). Marine officers generally make lieutenant colonel by being average. As long as an officer does not get in trouble or is not ranked lowest among their peers, they will likely advance for the first 20 years of their career. Getting along and conforming is the safest bet for job retention. Taking risk by going against the grain provides no advantage.

Allowing Moral Courage to Lapse. The 2015 report Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession by Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras describes the erosion of ethics as a result of unreasonable institutional pressure to produce results despite insufficient resources and lack of capacity. This ethical erosion is not unique to the Army, Marine officers also “cook the books” to meet impossible demands. Training standards are not met but get reported as met, and no one really wants to dig too deep until reality arrives in the form of ship collisions, cheating scandals, or mid-air refueling accidents. The recently published Afghanistan Papers depict the systemic lack of moral courage by officers through nearly two decades of war and proves that acting ethically does not just automatically happen. An individual’s moral courage can be practiced, strengthened, and turned into habit. Moral courage can also atrophy, its potential as an option fading with each rejection until taking a stand on principle is no longer even a distant thought. Wong and Gerras’ study shows the military facilitated ethical backsliding in peace time, and the absence of moral courage in war as described in the Afghanistan Papers is to be expected.  

Careerist Officers Avoid Risk. I believe most officers will do what is right even at cost to their careers when cornered with no other option. In other words, if the ethical dilemma is out in the open and being watched, then an officer will most likely do what they believe is right. However, many officers are careerists, and they would rather not be placed in a position to make waves. Therefore, the only solution for careerists is to avoid situations which could force risky decisions. Avoidance means these officers tend to keep their distance and manage more than lead or inspire. They do not want to know too much about their Marines since excess information could lead to messy decisions. Top-down communication, minimal collaboration, shallow relationships, and check-in-the-block “counselling” pinch off interaction to just what is needed to function. Transgressions of omission become more common to save face or avoid confrontation. Careerist officers isolate themselves from ethical conundrums by preventing the genuine familiarity, trust, and shared-understanding that maneuver warfare requires as described by the Marine Corps’ key foundational philosophies (Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1 Warfighting and Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 6 Command and Control).   

True Leaders Cannot Avoid Risk. Officers who truly lead will encounter situations for which black and white policy falls short and there are no good answers. For example, perhaps a 19-year-old Marine goes out, drives to a party, and drinks alcohol. Instead of driving back to the barracks, the Marine takes a taxi but has no money so asks the officer of the day (OOD) to use the battalion’s “arrive-alive” fund. What does the company commander do? Should the company commander hold non-judicial punishment (NJP) to discipline the Marine for underage drinking? Let’s say the company commander decides to hold the Marine accountable in a way that does not negatively affect the Marine’s permanent record. However, upon reading the OOD logbook, the battalion commander directs the company commander to hold NJP since the situation seems clear cut to the lieutenant colonel. The captain feels NJP could increase the risk of alcohol incidents by pushing indicators underground.

The Right Decision. What should the company commander do? What is right? Of course, the context needed to make a decision is absent in the example. However, no matter the specific context, most if not all potential decisions could be justified by finding arguments that make it “right” depending on the leader. In the end, the only right is what a leader feels is right in his or her own heart, and the calculation must include all potential consequences of making the “right” decision. Consequences such as being fired, resigning one’s commission, court martial, or the compromise of one’s own ethics to keep food on the table are all factors. For me, the best answer is the one that will cause the least amount of shame when recounting the decision to my children.

Feedback vs Force. The essence of the Marine Corps’ command and control (C2) philosophy has significant implications on how Marine officers must lead. Too often, Marines describe the “control” component of C2 as the act of making or forcing Marines or units to do what is directed. The Marine Corps’ philosophy describes control as feedback, not force. Feedback allows commanders to realize the mismatch between what they think and what reality is. Understanding the mismatch allows for better decisions during the “command” component of C2. Relying only on feedback from staff meetings, intelligence updates, or occasional commander-to-commander discussions falls short of what is needed to lead. An officer must push beyond the passive receipt of feedback provided through formal meetings and actively hunt for signals conveyed through tone of voice or body language. Then the officer must track down the causes of off or troubling non-verbal indicators which might lead to uncomfortable information and uncomfortable decisions. However, after ignoring subtle indicators leading up to a hazing incident or suicide, I have heard officers instead say “my door was open” implying that the problem should have been placed at their feet instead of them finding it. Acting on informal feedback shows care and concern which leads to deeper trust toward the leader. Deeper trust leads to better feedback, and a virtuous cycle is created. Keep in mind, better feedback could take the form of an angry platoon commander or platoon sergeant venting or criticizing a company commander because they trust the captain to not push back in the face of honesty, a type of feedback many officers I know would have difficulty handling. Force, on the other hand, only lasts as long as it is applied. Real leadership is the ability to inspire others to work toward a common goal. Officers get their Marines to want to perform, and should not rely on making them perform.

Real Intent. The ability to inspire can only come from a deep understanding and appreciation of the undercurrents and relationships within a unit. Furthermore, the Marine Corps warfighting philosophy of maneuver describes decentralized control and the ability for Marines to take the initiative based on commander’s intent. Real intent goes beyond paragraph 3.A. of an operations order which is limited in scope and duration. Real intent is knowing a commander the way most people know their own parents. We know what our parents would do in a given situation or would want us to do in a given situation. Commanders must teach regularly to compress into a few months what takes a decade or more with our parents. Subjects taught by officers should include ethics and leadership in addition to the technical aspects their trade. They must share their opinions and explain “the why” behind their decisions whenever possible. A reliance on force will not create the atmosphere needed for maneuver warfare. 

Family-like Familiarity. Maneuver warfare requires officers to interact with their Marines with the same level of familiarity and trust exhibited within a family. Officers should be able to counsel their Marines with the directness of a parent. Parents do not need proof to express concern and do not have to catch their kids in the act to make accusations (picture a parent opening their kids’ bedroom door upon hearing something suspicious only to find their kids acting nonchalant and innocent). At the same time, despite accusations, most kids do not doubt their parents’ love. Leading entails frank discussions from a gut feel, but officers rarely counsel without having proof. Counseling from gut feeling does one of two things: it either allows the counselled Marine to improve themselves if the leader’s perspective is right; or, it allows the counselled Marine to fix the leader’s perspective if the perspective is wrong. In either case, the Marine being counselled would want to hear the perspective since it still exists in the officer’s mind whether spoken out loud or not. Waiting for proof is too late and does nothing for the Marine needing improvement (or mistakenly thought to need improvement).

Preventing Inaction and Cowardice through Advertising. No officer wants to be the kind of leader that would shrink from making the tough ethical decision, but putting one’s own career at risk over principle is not easy and not a natural human tendency. Many officers, to include me, could be tempted to compromise their own ideals while saving face if no one knew their ideals in the first place. To overcome this understandable tendency, officers must personally teach leadership and ethics to their Marines often. Officers should frankly discuss how they would handle ethical scenarios or tough decisions. They should preach about what they feel is right and wrong as they teach leadership. By publicly declaring how they would act in a given situation, officers will have forced themselves to act with moral courage when that situation does arrive, or they risk being a fraud. Quietly taking the safe way out is too tempting and too easy when no expectations are created ahead of time. By painting themselves in a corner, officers can lift themselves up to be the ideal leader they want to be, not the person they might naturally be.

Ignorance as a Character Defense. Resignations and reliefs over principle or in protest seem to occur rarely. I can recall only two or three such incidents during almost thirty years on active duty. Perhaps clashes over principle are genuinely rare. If that is the case, one reason for the scarcity could be that every Marine across the Corps is generally in agreement in all things. Another more likely reason for the low rates could be that Marine officers on the whole do not encounter situations where they must take a stand because they are not aware of them. If so, then in most cases they are likely unaware because they do not want to be aware. In hiding from difficult ethical decisions, careerist officers inhibit meaningful feedback, never establish genuine intent, and cannot live the Marine Corps’ warfighting and command and control philosophies. This hollow leadership can be seen in the Afghanistan Papers where deceit and misrepresentation were primarily achieved through face-saving omission, the effects of which are no less damaging than overt lies and acts of commission. The American author and educator Paul Goodman said “stupidity is a character defense and has nothing to do with intellect.” To lead in the way Marine Corps philosophy espouses, officers cannot use ignorance as a way to defend their character. Saying “my door was open” after ignoring indicators leading up to a tragedy shifts blame and is self-serving. Officers must allow feedback, pursue indicators, and do what they believe is right even under messy or risky circumstances. Then they can go home to their bigger houses.