What the Captain Really Means . . . 

These comments, and hundreds more just like them, are what one hears when he listens to lieutenants and captains talk about ethics in the Air Force in the protected environment of academic freedom. According to these young officers, they and many others like them throughout the Air Force are becoming increasingly concerned about what appears to be a serious disregard for honesty and integrity. As one captain told me recently, "I can't tell my boss what's really going on in our organization; if I did, I'd probably get fired!"

Before we jump to the conclusion that maybe the captain is a little unethical himself, let's see what the captain really means. He went on to say that although he has numerous problems in his maintenance shop, his boss will only let him report 100 percent accomplishment of all maintenance objectives. The captain explained to me that his boss did not want to ruin his chances for a headquarters assignment the next time around, and he was not going to let higher headquarters think that he couldn’t handle a simple base-level job. So what the captain really means is that it appears as though honesty and truthfulness, at least in reporting, are less important to our commanders than a spotless record.

I have been hearing young officers tell me this sort of thing for almost four years as they reflect on Air Force problems while attending Squadron Officer School (SOS) at Air University. And it’s not just sour grapes: these are dedicated, unselfish, intelligent, capable officers. They are truly concerned about a perceived dichotomy of standards in the Air Force. They are saying that what Air Force leaders say about integrity and what they do about it are two different things.

In order to find out what the lieutenants and captains at SOS really mean, I conducted a survey of SOS class 74D. Of the class of about 780 officers, 617 responded to the survey. This sample is certainly representative of the entire class; and since each class at SOS represents a cross-section of Air Force junior officers, one might expect that a survey of all Air force junior officers would find views of the majority similar to those indicated by this smaller survey.

The survey responses indicate that there is a significant lack of faith in the integrity of Air Force management and leadership. This article will discuss the problem as seen by these junior officers and will make some specific proposals for action.

First of all, is ethics really a serious problem in the Air Force today? Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said that ethics is a serious problem. Sixty-one percent of the officers surveyed also indicated that in order to satisfy every requirement of their job they were required to sacrifice their integrity at times. Another thirteen percent said they were not sure whether they had to comprise their integrity in order to get the job done. Only twenty-six percent indicated they were not required to sacrifice their integrity at times. What does the captain really mean? Here are some examples of the most common activities listed by these young officers:

--Being required to document training that was never accomplished. The most frequent reason given was the limitation imposed by lack of time.

--Being required to report only 100 percent of mission accomplishments.

--Feeling compelled to overlook apparent abuses of privileges by senior officers.

--Being required to spend budget money at the end of a fiscal year in order to insure re-allocation of that money in the next fiscal year.

--Being required to fly an aircraft that may have been unsafe in order to meet the sortie rate.

Other problems of a more general nature were also listed. These are items that were most frequently noted in the written part of the survey:

--Awards and decorations frequently given as "end-of-tour prizes," with Commendation Medals going to junior officers, Meritorious Service Medals to field-graders, and the Legion of Merit to seniors officers.

--Undercover communication systems that are set up to warn of an impending "no-notice" IG inspection.

--Greater concern over image and appearances than with real problems.

--Squelching serious incident re ports in order to keep the rate down.

--Greater concern with loyalty than with honest reporting.

Although some of these claims may sound a bit exaggerated, they should not come as any great surprise to most of the readers of this article. Accuracy in documentation and reporting has consistently been a problem in the Air Force. Lieutenant General Louis L. Wilson, while he was serving as the USAF Inspector General, criticized commanders who were being less than honest in reporting their accomplishments. In almost all the units inspected during one inspection period, he found that supervisors were signing off inspection requirements without actually conducting the inspections, people were disregarding safety requirements as spelled out in regulations and manuals, training requirements were being documented when the training had never been conducted, and personnel were failing to report discrepancies even though they were aware of them.¹

An interesting aspect of this entire problem is that although the junior officers responding to this survey admitted to participating in ethically questionable behavior, they laid the largest share of the blame on the shoulders of senior Air Force officers. Senior officers were selected by 37 percent of these lieutenants and captains as the worst offenders of Air Force ethical standards. The reason, according to several junior officers questioned about this aspect, is that the seniors know what's going on, are responsible for the management system, and therefore are tacitly condoning the behavior. Regardless of the logic and the reasoning, this seems to be the way our junior officers see the problem. Of course others were also listed as offenders, including majors, lieutenant colonels, civilians, and even Air Force wives. But the largest single group was senior officers, by a 25 percent margin over the next highest group. Senior officers and the "system" are responsible for our ethical problems, say our junior officers. Whether this is in fact true is beside the point; this is the perception of our junior officers, and that fact alone is cause for concern.

Adding insult to injury, at least one young Air Force officer has made a public issue of his perceptions by submitting to an interview by a zealous reporter writing for True magazine. In the article, Captain Mile Ross is quoted as saying that an officer soon "learns that he can lie, cheat or steal to protect his unit"² Again, regardless of the logic used to arrive at that conclusion, the Air force seems to come out second-best in the ethics department.

One of the immediate reactions to all this might be to suggest that we draft up a new code of ethics and give it the widest possible distribution and publicity throughout the Air Force. In fact, a new code of ethics was staffed by a special study group at the Air Command and Staff College. Perhaps a new code should even be publicized to the civilian community in order to restore some of the tarnished image. What would our lieutenants and captains have to say about that idea?

Although 63 percent of the junior officers surveyed said they were in favor of seeing the Air Force adopt a new code of ethics, many of them also revealed that they would have some serious reservations about its workability. Some officers indicated that such a code would be looked upon as "eyewash"; others said that it would probably not reduce unethical behavior; some even expressed the fear that it might become a catch-all disciplinary tool if it were given legal status. The greatest obstacle to be overcome, then, is the probability that a new Air Force code of ethics would be seen as an image-building device and little more. Although many of our top Air Force leaders have expressed concern over the Air Force's public image, we must have improved ethical standards and behavior for other reasons.³ Without some kind of concomitant affirmative action by top Air Force leaders, a new code of ethics would be ^silently rejected and ignored by Air Force junior officers. Without the support of our juniors, the code would fade into obscurity.

What the captains and lieutenants really mean is that they want to see actions, not words. Those who responded to the survey were not without recommendations. For example, when asked what could be done to improve ethical behavior in the Air Force, the vast majority of officers responded with, "Start at the top." This does not necessarily mean that our junior officers believe that senior officers are the ones who need to be corrected. Their comments suggest that a program to improve ethics in the Air Force must be conducted with 'the visible and active support of the top commanders in the Air Force. They want to see our commanders prove their intent by providing the impetus at all levels to start "telling it like it is." As one lieutenant said in a seminar discussion on ethics, "They've got to be prepared to hear some things they don't want to hear."

Here are some of the specific actions that our junior officers would like to see initiated as concrete assurance that integrity and honesty are as important as we say they are:

--Cause an Air Force-wide review of command and unit training requirements to reduce or eliminate unessential requirements.

--Review all requirements for 100 percent achievement in operations and maintenance areas.

--Crack down on alcoholism.

--Review the privileges of higher ranking officers with the intent to reduce the opportunities for abusing those privileges.

--Encourage a management system that will tolerate truthful reporting of problems without fear of reprisals.

--Conduct an Air Force-wide survey on ethical problems.

--Conduct base-level and command- level seminars on ethics.

--Revise budgeting philosophies to prevent "scare" spending at the end of a fiscal year.

Although some of these suggestions require a great deal of consideration as to their appropriateness and feasibility, one further recommendation was made that seems to have considerable merit and could yield immediately tangible results. That recommendation is to convene a special panel of junior officers to sit down with the top Air Force commanders and discuss the subject of ethics in an atmosphere of freedom and nonattribution. This panel would be an ad hoc advisory group composed of lieutenants and captains from all walks of Air Force life.

In the minds of most of our junior officers, that advice will rank with Alice in Wonderland as far as being in touch with reality is concerned. But we must start somewhere. We can start by resolving to stop rationalizing away what we recognize to be unethical behavior. Complaining about the low standards of ethical behavior while at the same time contributing to those low standards is nothing more than hypocrisy. Our junior officers who convince themselves that their careers are at stake in these ethical decisions are in reality perpetuating that same system to which they feel shackled. On the other hand, they might be pleasantly surprised to learn that their attempts to do what is ethically right will frequently be met with appreciation and positive recognition. But as long as they continue to fill squares and shade the truth, then they must accept full responsibility for the "system," because they are part of it.

AFROTC Det 5 
Auburn University

Notes

1. "IG Uncovers False Reports," Air Force Times, vol. 32, no. 20 (22 December 1971), p. 15.

2. Robert J. Flood, "Busted Out of the United States Air Force," True (July 1974), p. 39.

3. Major Robert C. Carroll, USA, "Ethics of the Military Profession," Air University Review, November-December 1974, p. 39.

4. Sir John Winthrop Hackett, The Profession of Arms (London: The Times Publishing Company, 1962), p. 64.