My Ethical Army

It goes without saying that your Army probably needs some ethics. When lawyers sit around a table disseminating minute details about when and how you can drive your goverment vehicle one can only feel universally confident about their motives. Because really isn't it all about rigid rules and the unwavering unthinking enforcement of them? Let's hope so or the moral fabric of your Army is crumbling.

I had an Ethics class last night. It said 1800-2000 on the board, two hours of briefing bliss. Slam us in a room, bring out a few chairs and let the colonel speak his mind to us. As a soldier it's not ok to accept gifts of excessive money from strangers. Alternatively if you've been friends with a Sheik, as some are according to the good colonel, then it's a marvelous exception to the modest gift giving rule.

Fast forward through another one of his corny jokes. We all sit in silence, cracking painful grins humoring this ridiculous dinosaur who would wither in the civilian world. Since you can't support all charities then you shouldn't be allowed to support any at all. "People call me scrooge but I shut down toys for tots, over this rule" he says with a sly smirk, oddly proud.

The rest is a mush of words, the ramblings of obsolete thinking, the absurdity of a list of decade old laws. A new slide pops up, I'm half paying attention, something about the highest base pay for a General being around $150,000, and how "WE" don't make near as much as that. Coming from someone who makes at least 3 times as much as most everyone else in the room it seems comical. And so my ethics class ends and I can't help but feel like the Army completely missed the point. Lifes more than economics and insane values. There are bigger things to worry about here, but I'll sign my name and smile and pray with grinding teeth that few of these briefings await me upon demobolization.