LYING TO OURSELVES:

DISHONESTY IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

Leonard Wong 

Stephen J. Gerras 

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Carlisle Barracks, PA and

UNITED STATES 

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iii

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

LYING TO OURSELVES:

DISHONESTY IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

Leonard Wong

Stephen J. Gerras

February 2015

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iv

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ISBN 1-58487-664-6
v

FOREWORD

One of the hallmarks of a true profession is its ability to assess and regulate itself, especially with respect 

to adherence to its foundational ethos. Such self-examination is difficult and often causes discomfort within 

the profession. Nonetheless, it is absolutely necessary 

to enable members of the profession to render the 

service for which the profession exists. U.S. military 

professionals have never shied away from this responsibility, and they do not today, as evidenced by 

this riveting monograph. Discussing dishonesty in 

the Army profession is a topic that will undoubtedly 

make many readers uneasy. It is, however, a concern 

that must be addressed to better the Army profession. 

Through extensive discussions with officers and thorough and sound analysis, Drs. Leonard Wong and 

Stephen Gerras make a compelling argument for the 

Army to introspectively examine how it might be inadvertently encouraging the very behavior it deems 

unacceptable. The unvarnished treatment of this sensitive topic presented by the authors hopefully will be 

the start of a dialogue examining this crucial issue. 

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

vii

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

LEONARD WONG is a research professor in the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College. 

He focuses on the human and organizational dimensions of the military. He is a retired Army officer 

whose career includes teaching leadership at West 

Point and serving as an analyst for the Chief of Staff of 

the Army. His research has led him to locations such 

as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Vietnam. 

He has testified before Congress. Dr. Wong’s work has 

been highlighted in news media such as The New York 

Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New 

Yorker, CNN, NPR, PBS, and 60 Minutes. Dr. Wong is 

a professional engineer and holds a B.S. from the U.S. 

Military Academy and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Texas 

Tech University.

STEPHEN J. GERRAS is a Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Command, Leadership, 

and Management at the U.S. Army War College. He 

served in the Army for over 25 years, including commanding a light infantry company and a transportation battalion, teaching leadership at West Point, and 

serving as the Chief of Operations and Agreements 

for the Office of Defense Cooperation in Ankara, Turkey. Colonel (Ret.) Gerras holds a B.S. from the U.S. 

Military Academy and an M.S. and Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology from Penn State 

University.

ix

SUMMARY

While it has been fairly well established that the 

Army is quick to pass down requirements to individuals and units regardless of their ability to actually 

comply with the totality of the requirements, there has 

been very little discussion about how the Army culture has accommodated the deluge of demands on the 

force. This study found that many Army officers, after 

repeated exposure to the overwhelming demands and 

the associated need to put their honor on the line to 

verify compliance, have become ethically numb. As a 

result, an officer’s signature and word have become 

tools to maneuver through the Army bureaucracy 

rather than being symbols of integrity and honesty. 

Sadly, much of the deception that occurs in the profession of arms is encouraged and sanctioned by the military institution as subordinates are forced to prioritize 

which requirements will actually be done to standard 

and which will only be reported as done to standard. 

As a result, untruthfulness is surprisingly common in 

the U.S. military even though members of the profession are loath to admit it. 

To address this problem, the authors point out that 

the first step toward changing this culture of dishonesty is acknowledging organizational and individual 

fallibilities. Until a candid exchange begins within the 

Army that includes recognition of the rampant duplicity, the current culture will not improve. The second 

recommendation calls for restraint in the propagation 

of requirements and compliance checks. Policies and 

directives from every level of headquarters should be 

analyzed in regard to their impact on the cumulative 

load on the force. Finally, the authors recommend 

that leaders at all levels must lead truthfully. At the 
highest levels, leading truthfully includes convincing 

uniformed and civilian senior leadership of the need 

to accept a degree of political risk in reducing requirements. At other levels, leading truthfully may include 

striving for 100 percent compliance in all areas, but being satisfied when only 85 percent is reported in some. 

The Army profession rests upon a bedrock of trust. 

This monograph attempts to bolster that trust by calling attention to the deleterious culture the Army has 

inadvertently created.

x
xi

ACRONYMS AND JARGON

AR 623-3 – U.S. Army Regulation 623-3, Evaluation

Reporting System

AR 350-1 – U.S. Army Regulation 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development

ALARACT – All Army Activity Message

ARFORGEN – Army Force Generation

CASEVAC – Casualty Evacuation

CERP – Commander's Emergency Response Program

CG – Commanding General

CONEX – Intermodal shipping container

CO – Commanding Officer

COP – Combat Outpost

DA – Department of the Army

DFAC – Dining Facility

DoD – Department of Defense

Evac – Evacuation

Green 2 – Sensitive Item Report

IA – Information Assurance

IDF – Indirect Fire

IED – Improvised Explosive Device

IG – Inspector General

LPD – Leader Professional Development

MEDEVAC – Medical Evacuation

METL – Mission Essential Task List

MSAF – Multi-source Assessment and Feedback
xii

NBC – Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical

NCO – Non-commissioned Officer

NCOER – Non-commissioned Officer Evaluation

Report

ND – Negligent Discharge

OCO – Overseas Contingency Operations

OER – Officer Evaluation Report

PCS – Permanent Change of Station

PT – Physical training

RIP – Relief In Place

SALTA - Enemy Situation (including size and equipment), Enemy Activity, Location, Time, 

Friendly Action report

SARC – Sexual Assault Response Coordinator

SHARP – Sexual Assault Prevention and Response

Program

TDY – Temporary Duty

TIC – Troops In Contact

TRiPS – Travel Risk Planning System
1

LYING TO OURSELVES:

DISHONESTY IN THE ARMY PROFESSION

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently stated 

that he was “deeply troubled” by the latest spate of 

ethical scandals across the military. His spokesman, 

Rear Admiral John Kirby, told a news conference, “I 

think he’s generally concerned that there could be, at 

least at some level, a breakdown in ethical behavior 

and in the demonstration of moral courage.” He added, “He’s concerned about the health of the force and 

the health of the strong culture of accountability and 

responsibility that Americans have come to expect 

from their military.”1

Indeed, troubling indicators point to ethical and 

moral transgressions occurring across all levels of the 

military. In the Air Force, for example, nearly half of 

the nuclear missile launch officers at one base were involved with or knew about widespread cheating on an 

exam testing knowledge of the missile launch systems.2 

In the Navy, 30 senior enlisted instructors responsible 

for training sailors in the operation of nuclear reactors were suspended after a sailor alerted superiors 

that he had been offered answers to a written test.3

 In 

the Army, a recent promotion board looking through 

the evaluations of senior noncommissioned officers 

(NCOs) found that raters were recording deceptively 

taller heights in order to keep any NCO weight gain 

within Army height/weight standards.4 Additionally, 

the constant drumbeat of senior officer misconduct 

and ethical failings have included violations ranging 

from lavish personal trips at government expense to 

hypocritical sexual transgressions. 

On one hand, scandals such as these are beneficial 

in that they raise visibility of the critical necessity and 
2

clear expectation of honesty and integrity in the military profession. On the other hand, such scandals are 

detrimental not only because they erode the internal 

and external trust critical to the institution of the military, but also because they encourage many in the profession to sit in judgment of a few bad apples, while 

firmly believing that they themselves would never lie, 

cheat, or steal. After all, as Secretary Hagel pointed 

out, “the overwhelming majority of our service members are brave, upright and honest people.”5 Dishonesty in the military, however, lies not just with the 

misdeeds of a few, but with the potential for deception throughout the entire military. This monograph 

examines how untruthfulness is surprisingly common 

in the military even though members of the profession 

are loath to admit it. 

We begin by analyzing the flood of requirements 

experienced by military leaders and show that the 

military as an institution has created an environment 

where it is literally impossible to execute to standard 

all that is required. At the same time, reporting noncompliance with the requirements is seldom a viable 

option. As a result, the conditions are set where subordinates and units are often forced to determine which 

requirements will actually be done to standard and 

which will only be reported as done to standard. We 

continue by examining the effect on individuals and 

analyze how ethical fading and rationalizing allow 

individuals to convince themselves that their honor 

and integrity are intact despite ethical compromise. 

We conclude by recommending open professional 

dialogue on the phenomenon, institutional restraint in 

the proliferation of requirements, and the acceptance 

of risk in leading truthfully at all levels.
3

This monograph is not intended to be an indictment of the military profession. Instead, the subsequent pages merely argue that the military needs to 

introspectively examine how it might be inadvertently abetting the very behavior it deems unacceptable. 

We realize, though, that engaging in such a dialogue 

may be awkward and uncomfortable. Because the 

U.S. military is simultaneously a functioning organization and a practicing profession, it takes remarkable 

courage for a senior leader to acknowledge the gritty 

shortcomings and embarrassing frailties of the military as an organization in order to better the military 

as a profession. Such a discussion, however, is both 

essential and necessary for the health of the military 

profession. 

While the phenomenon we are addressing afflicts 

the entire U.S. military, we focus on the U.S. Army 

because it is the institution with which we are most 

familiar. While the military profession can be broadly 

conceptualized to include anyone who serves in the 

Department of Defense (DoD), we give particular attention to the experiences of the Army officer corps. 

The officer corps is a bellwether for the military 

because, as the Armed Forces Officer points out:

The nation expects more from the military officer: It 

expects a living portrayal of the highest standards of 

moral and ethical behavior. The expectation is neither 

fair nor unfair; it is a simple fact of the profession. The 

future of the services and the well-being of its people 

depend on the public perception and fact of the honor, 

virtue and trustworthiness of the officer corps.6
4

THE DELUGE OF REQUIREMENTS

This analysis began with an exploration into the 

avalanche of mandatory training requirements levied throughout the Army. It has been fairly well established that the Army as an institution is quick to 

pass down requirements to individuals and units 

regardless of their ability to actually comply with 

the totality of the requirements. In 2001, the Army 

Training and Leader Development Panel noted this 

disturbing trend:

Much of the Army, from the most senior levels on 

down, no longer follows or cannot follow the Army’s 

training management doctrine. The doctrine, when 

applied to support mission focus, prioritizes tasks and 

locks in training far enough out to provide predictability and allocate resources. It acknowledges that units 

cannot do everything because there are not enough 

resources, especially time. Today’s Army ignores the 

training doctrine.7

In 2002, a U.S. Army War College study tallied all 

the training directed at company commanders and 

compared that total to the available number of training days. The analysis concluded that:

In the rush by higher headquarters to incorporate every good idea into training, the total number of training days required by all mandatory training directives 

literally exceeds the number of training days available 

to company commanders. Company commanders 

somehow have to fit 297 days of mandatory requirements into 256 available training days.8

More recently, in 2012 the Department of the Army 

Inspector General (IG) examined how units were cop-
5

ing with the deluge of mandatory requirements involved in the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) 

process. The IG report noted: 

At none (0 of 16) of the locations inspected were companies in the ARFORGEN process able to complete all 

mandatory training and administrative tasks during 

ARFORGEN which impacts their ability to lead effectively and take care of Soldiers.9

Those three reports focus on the detrimental effects on training management due to the suffocating 

amount of mandatory requirements imposed upon 

units and commanders. Commanders were said to be 

harried and stifled as they were inundated by directives from above. Yet these reports only obliquely address a more pernicious phenomenon emerging from 

a culture that demands more from the profession’s 

members than is possible. If units and individuals 

are literally unable to complete the tasks placed upon 

them, then reports submitted upward by leaders must 

be either admitting noncompliance, or they must be 

intentionally inaccurate. Units, however, rarely have 

the option to report that they have not completed the 

ARFORGEN pre-deployment checklist. Likewise, it is 

not an option for individuals to decide that they will 

forego sexual assault prevention training this quarter 

because they are too busy with other tasks. If reporting noncompliance is not an acceptable alternative 

because of the Army’s tendency toward zero defects, 

then it is important to examine the resultant institutional implications. 

To examine the intersection of the Army’s unbending requirements with the force’s widespread inability to comply with every directive, we looked into the 

experiences of officers (and some civilians) throughout the Army. We conducted discussions with scores 
6

of officers, including captains (including some from 

the U.S. Marine Corps) at Fort Benning, GA, and Fort 

Lee, VA; staff officers on the Department of Army 

staff in the Pentagon, Washington, DC; majors at Fort 

Leavenworth, KS; and former battalion and brigade 

commanders at Carlisle Barracks, PA. 

Discussions across the force confirm, as previous 

reports have noted, that the requirements passed 

down from above far exceed the ability of units and 

individuals to accomplish them. A former brigade 

commander bluntly described the annual training 

requirement situation: “It’s more than you can do in 

one year.”10 Another officer gave more detail: “The 

amount of requirements, if you laid [them] down on 

a calendar—all the external stuff you have to do—and 

then how much time you have to complete [them]—

it’s physically impossible!” Another officer added his 

perspective: 

It’s a systemic problem throughout the entire Army . . . 

We can probably do two or three things in a day, but if 

you give us 20, we’re gonna half-ass 15 and hope you 

ignore the other five.

Given that it is impossible to comply with every requirement, how do units and individuals reconcile the 

impossible task of accomplishing all directed training 

with a bureaucracy that demands confirmation that 

every requirement was accomplished? Do they admit 

noncompliance? Do they submit false reports? 

Before addressing these questions, it should be 

noted that U.S. Army officers, and members of the 

military profession in general, tend to have a self-image that bristles at any hint of dishonesty. Consider 

that according to a recent survey completed by over 

20,000 members of the Army, 93 percent of respon-
7

dents believed that the Army values of loyalty, duty, 

respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal 

courage line up well with their own personal values.11

This apparent self-confidence in the trustworthiness 

of America’s warriors is also mirrored externally by 

American society. Each year, the Harris Poll assesses 

the confidence that the U.S. public has in the leaders 

of major American institutions. For the past decade, 

military leaders have been at the top of the list, with 

55 percent of Americans reporting that they have a 

great deal of confidence in the leaders of the military. 

For comparison, leaders in Congress and Wall Street 

garnered societal confidence of only 6 percent and 7 

percent, respectively, and thus occupied positions at 

the other end of the spectrum.12

With such a strong self-image and the reinforcing 

perspective of a mostly adoring American society, it is 

not surprising that leaders in the military profession 

respond with indignation at any whiff of deceit concerning directed training compliance. So, it was not 

unexpected for discussions with officers to begin with 

bold declarations such as the colonel who pointed out, 

“Nobody was ever asked to report something as true 

that was not,” or the captain who emphatically stated, 

“I have never given a false report. Never intentionally 

have I said, ‘Yes, we’re 100% on this,’ when I knew we 

weren’t.”

After a few minutes into the discussion (usually 

about 20), however, hints would inevitably emerge 

that there was something deeper involved in the situation. For example, one senior officer reflected upon the 

pressures of complying with every training directive 

and stated, “You find ways to qualify your answer. 

It’s not quibbling—it’s assuming risk.” When pressed 

for specifics on how they managed, officers tended to 
8

dodge the issue with statements such as, “You gotta 

make priorities, we met the intent, or we got creative.” 

Eventually words and phrases such as “hand waving, fudging, massaging, or checking the box” would 

surface to sugarcoat the hard reality that, in order to 

satisfy compliance with the surfeit of directed requirements from above, officers resort to evasion and deception. In other words, in the routine performance 

of their duties as leaders and commanders, U.S. Army 

officers lie. 

Once officers conceded that they did, indeed, occasionally misrepresent the truth concerning compliance with directives, admissions tended to flow more 

freely. One former battalion commander commented, 

“We’ve always pencil-whipped training.” A captain 

recalled a specific example of dealing with the overwhelming requirements:

For us, it was those little tasks that had to get done 

when we got returned from predeployment block 

leave—the number of taskings went through the roof. 

None [by] themselves were extremely extensive—like 

a 15-minute online course. The problem was getting 

your formation to do it with the availability of computers and then the ability to print and prove that you 

had taken it. So I think that some of the training got 

lost in translation. For a nine-man squad, they would 

pick the smartest dude, and he would go and take it 

nine times for the other members of his squad and 

then that way they had a certificate to prove that they 

had completed it. 

Another captain had a similar experience:

I had a platoon sergeant when I first became a platoon leader, and I walked into the office and he was 

printing out certificates with people’s names on them. 
9

I was like, “What are you doing?” He says, “Mandatory training!” It was so accepted. It’s almost like 

corruption. 

HONESTLY CONFRONTING DISHONESTY

Dishonesty, however, is not restricted just to reports of mandatory training. While the truth is often 

sidestepped in reporting compliance with directed 

requirements, dishonesty and deception are also 

prevalent in many other realms of the Army. Deceit 

can also appear in maintenance, supply, or other official reporting. For example, one captain spoke of the 

deception in vehicle readiness reporting:

I sat in a log synch and they’re like, “What’s your vehicle percentage?” I said, “I’m at 90%.” [But] if [anyone] 

told me to move them tomorrow, [I knew] they would 

all break. For months and months and months we reported up “90%, Good-to-go on vehicles!”–knowing 

that it didn’t matter because it carried no weight. It 

literally was just filling a box on a slide. 

Another captain gave an example of the half-truths 

commonly found in property accountability:

We had this antenna and it had a serial number, but 

it was a component of the antenna. . . . We would 

always joke that if the Army were ever audited, and 

you looked at everything the Army was supposed to 

have, it would likely have most of it. However, would 

it really be of value or use or would you have a piece 

of plastic with a serial number that counted as an antenna? . . . We weren’t lying. We met the requirement 

at its minimum and that’s what we sent up. We gave 

them what they wanted. 
10

Examples of deceit also emerged in a wide variety 

of other areas concerning compliance with directed 

actions. According to a senior officer, “A command 

inspection is required within 90 days of company 

command. People don’t do it. They make it up.” One 

colonel spoke of inaccurate reporting following an undesirable directive: “We were asked to go to off-post 

housing to check on soldier quality of life. Folks were 

uncomfortable going so they pencil-whipped it.” In 

the words of another senior officer, “We have levied 

[on us] so many information demands that we infer 

that if I’m not asked specifics, they really don’t care. 

So I’ll just report ambiguous info.”

An officer related his experience with the Travel 

Risk Planning System (TRiPS) form required for 

soldiers going on leave or pass:

A soldier dying on vacation because of sleep deprivation is a horrible loss. So it is absolutely something we 

need to mitigate. However the focus for pretty much 

damn [near] every soldier is, ‘Hey, I just need to get 

this done so I can get my leave form in and get it approved.’ So what do you do? You know what answers 

the survey wants. You click those answers. And it’s 

sad, but it’s the way it works. 

Another common (and innocuous) form of deceit 

in the U.S. Army officer corps concerns the evaluation 

reporting system. The dishonesty occurs not in the 

actual prose of the Officer Evaluation Report (OER)/

NCO Evaluation Report (NCOER) (although an analysis of the over-the-top hyperbole in evaluations would 

make an interesting study), but rather with the associated OER/NCOER Support Form. Army Regulation 

623-3, Evaluation Reporting System, states that a rater 

must conduct an initial counseling with the rated of-
11

ficer/NCO within the first 30 days of the rating period, followed by additional counseling sessions every 

quarter. To verify compliance with this directive, the 

rated officer/NCO, the rater, and the senior rater must 

initial—or on the newest version, digitally sign—the 

support form. 

It is the exception, not the rule, that the face-to-face 

counseling mandated by the regulation and verified 

by three members of the chain of command ever occurs. While initial counseling sessions may have a 

chance of being accomplished, compliance with the 

quarterly counseling requirement is extremely rare. 

Yet each year, tens of thousands of support forms are 

submitted with untruthful information. Interestingly, 

fabricating dates that the directed counseling supposedly took place is both expected and unremarkable (as 

long as the contrived dates do not fall on a weekend). 

To the average officer, it is the way business is done 

in the Army. Admitting that the counseling did not 

take place is very seldom an option. In the words of 

a major, “The Army would rather us make up dates 

saying, ‘Yes, we did it’ as opposed to saying, ‘Hey, I 

messed up.’”

With such widespread evidence that Army individuals and units are surrounded by a culture where 

deceptive information is both accepted and commonplace, we sought to examine the situation from the 

perspective of those who receive the flawed information. Are the recipients of the data and reports aware 

that the information provided to them may not be 

accurate? We looked to the views of civilians and officers serving on the Department of the Army staff in 

the Pentagon for some insights. Discussions revealed 

that most Army staff officers recognize that much of 

the data provided to them is imprecise. 
12

When asked if units are submitting inaccurate 

data, one staff officer bluntly replied, “Sure, I used to 

do it when I was down there.” Another staff officer 

added, “Nobody believes the data; [senior leaders] 

take it with a grain of salt . . . The data isn’t valued, 

probably because they know the data isn’t accurate.” 

Another clarified, “Everyone does the best they can, 

but we know the data is wrong.” One officer summed 

up the situation, “We don’t trust our compliance data. 

There’s no system to track it. If we frame something 

as compliance, people ‘check the block.’ They will 

quibble and the Army staff knows it.”

Likewise, most former battalion commanders admitted that, in their roles as data receivers, many of 

the slides briefed to them showing 100 percent compliance or the responses given them for information 

requests were probably too optimistic or inaccurate. 

For example, one colonel described how his brigade 

commander needed to turn in his situation report on 

Friday, forcing the battalions to do theirs on Thursday, 

and therefore the companies submitted their data on 

Wednesday—necessitating the companies to describe 

events that had not even occurred yet. The end result 

was that, while the companies gave it their best shot, 

everyone including the battalion commander knew 

that the company reports were not accurate. 

Meanwhile, officers at all levels admit to occasionally feeding the Army institution information that—

although it is “what they want to hear”—is not totally 

honest. As a result, it appears that a peculiar situation 

emerges where both those requesting information and 

those supplying it know that the information is questionable. Despite the existence of this mutually agreed 

deception, all concerned are content to sanction and 

support the illusion that all is well. In the words of 

one Department of the Army staff officer, “The façade 
13

goes all the way up.” The façade allows the Army 

to continue functioning—slides are briefed as green, 

compliance is shown to be almost always 100 percent, 

and queries from Congress, DoD, or higher headquarters are answered on time. 

DOWNRANGE 

One might expect that ethical boundaries are more 

plainly delineated in a combat environment—the 

stakes are higher, and the mission is more clearly focused. Discussions with officers, however, revealed 

that many of the same issues in the garrison environment also emerge in combat. For example, a senior 

officer described how the combat mission can lead to 

putting the right “spin” on reports: “We got so focused 

on getting bodies to combat that we overlooked a lot 

of issues like weight control, alcohol, or PT.” Not surprisingly, directed training is also often sidestepped 

in theater. One captain spoke of trying to complete 

mandatory Sexual Assault Prevention and Response 

Program (SHARP) training:

We needed to get SHARP training done and reported 

to higher headquarters, so we called the platoons and 

told them to gather the boys around the radio and 

we said, ‘Don’t touch girls.’ That was our quarterly 

SHARP training.

But stretching the truth downrange often extends 

beyond compliance with mandatory training. A major described how Green 2 sensitive item reports were 

submitted early every morning. Despite the usual 100 

percent accountability, however, it was obvious that 

it could not have been conducted to standard since 

nobody ever knocked on their doors to check weapon 
14

serial numbers. Another officer related how supply 

accountability in a combat zone could be manipulated 

by misrepresenting the truth:

We found ways to beat the system. You show up in 

country and you get a layout and immediately what 

do you do? You do a shortage annex for everything. So 

that way the Army—with an infinite budget in country—would replenish your product [even though] the 

unit never really lost the equipment in the beginning. 

Discussions with senior officers revealed other examples of bending the truth. One colonel stated that, 

“The cost of investigating a lost widget isn’t worth the 

cost of the item; they write it off and later say it was 

lost to the Pakistanis.” Another colonel stated: 

We were required to inspect 150 polling sites in Iraq 

(which nobody could possibly ever do) and fill out 

an elaborate spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was to get 

validation for higher that you did what they told you 

to. We gave them what they wanted. 

One frequently provided example of deception at 

the senior level concerned readiness assessments of 

partner forces. It was not uncommon for readiness ratings to vary in conjunction with deployment cycles. In 

other words, the commander’s assessments were not 

based so much on the counterpart unit capabilities as 

they were on the American unit stage of deployment. 

As one colonel explained:

I show up and [the readiness assessments] go yellow 

or green to red. I’m ready to leave – they go from yellow to green. We went through the reports with the 

CG every ninety days. Everyone wanted to believe 

what they wanted to believe. 
15

One widespread recurring requirement for junior leaders in Afghanistan and Iraq was the storyboard—a PowerPoint narrative describing unit events 

and occurrences. One senior officer pointed out, 

however, that:

Every contact with the enemy required a storyboard. 

People did not report enemy contact because they 

knew the storyboard was useless and they didn’t want 

to go through the hassle. 

A captain gave his perspective and his eventual 

approach to providing incomplete and inaccurate 

storyboards to higher headquarters:

I understand there is a higher reporting requirement of which I reported verbally, and I did a proper 

debrief—I wrote it down and then I sent it to them. 

[But now] I have to combine a bunch of pictures 

onto a PowerPoint slide. Now I’m doing this storyboard because there’s an IED, because a donkey fell 

off the mountain, because some dude’s dog came in 

and I had to shoot it on the COP and now this dude 

is mad. It became an absolute burden. So what ended 

up happening was [that] after about the first couple of 

months, you’re saving your storyboards, and as soon 

as you had an incident that [was] somewhat similar to 

what you already had, it became a cut and paste gig. 

And the quality of the information that you are giving 

them wasn’t painting the picture for higher as to what 

was going on. And you can say, “Yes, Lieutenant, you 

should have done better.” You’re absolutely right. But 

when I only had 4 hours between this mission and the 

next, what’s better – spending 15 minutes to make this 

beautiful storyboard or planning my next operation? 
16

The attitude of “I don’t need to tell anyone what 

happened” was also found in other areas where it 

was perceived that the reporting requirements were 

too onerous. For example, one officer discussed his 

unit’s failure to ask permission to respond to indirect 

fire (IDF):

Counterfire became a big issue in terms of [the] ability to counterfire when you were receiving IDF. Some 

companies in our battalion were returning fire without 

an accurate grid. They got shot at so they shot back. 

Of course, they were out in the middle of nowhere 

with a low chance of collateral damage. [But] people 

in our battalion knew, and just didn’t say anything. 

I’m not sure how high up people knew, but it was accepted. That was the norm. We’ll just not say anything 

about it. 

Another area that reflected the malleability of ethical standards was the distribution of cash through the 

Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP). 

As one senior officer noted, “CERP is not tracked 

in detail and everyone knows it.” Another colonel 

observed:

CERP money is an area where we probably fudge. 

We gave company commanders a lot of money that 

we powered down to people who weren’t trained. We 

probably submitted reports that weren’t accurate.

ETHICAL FADING

At the outset of this monograph, it was brashly 

declared that most U.S. Army officers routinely lie. 

It would not be surprising if many uniformed readers raised a skeptical eyebrow at that claim. Indeed, it 

would not be unusual for nearly all military readers to 
17

maintain a self-identity that takes offense with notions 

of dishonesty or deception. Ironically, though, many 

of the same people who flinched at that initial accusation of deceit probably yawned with each new example of untruthfulness offered in the preceding pages. 

“White” lies and “innocent” mistruths have become 

so commonplace in the U.S. Army that there is often 

no ethical angst, no deep soul-searching, and no righteous outrage when examples of routine dishonesty 

are encountered. Mutually agreed deception exists in 

the Army because many decisions to lie, cheat, or steal 

are simply no longer viewed as ethical choices. 

Behavioral ethics experts point out that people often fail to recognize the moral components of an ethical decision because of ethical fading. Ethical fading 

occurs when the “moral colors of an ethical decision 

fade into bleached hues that are void of moral implications.”13 Ethical fading allows us to convince ourselves 

that considerations of right or wrong are not applicable to decisions that in any other circumstances would 

be ethical dilemmas. This is not so much because we 

lack a moral foundation or adequate ethics training, 

but because psychological processes and influencing 

factors subtly neutralize the “ethics” from an ethical 

dilemma. Ethical fading allows Army officers to transform morally wrong behavior into socially acceptable 

conduct by dimming the glare and guilt of the ethical 

spotlight. 

One factor that encourages ethical fading in the 

Army is the use of euphemisms and obscure phrases to 

disguise the ethical principles involved in decisions.14

Phrases such as checking the box and giving them 

what they want abound and focus attention on the 

Army’s annoying administrative demands rather than 

dwelling on the implications of dishonesty in official 
18

reports. Indeed, many officers even go as far as to insist that lying to the system can better be described as 

prioritizing, accepting prudent risk, or simply good 

leadership. 

A more recent and significant development concerning ethical fading is the exponential growth in the 

number of occasions that an officer is obliged to confirm or verify compliance with requirements. When it 

comes to requirements for units and individuals, the 

Army resembles a compulsive hoarder. It is excessively permissive in allowing the creation of new requirements, but it is also amazingly reluctant to discard 

old demands. The result is a rapid accumulation of 

directives passed down, data calls sent out, and new 

requirements generated by the Army. Importantly, 

the Army relies on leaders to enforce compliance of 

the increasing amount of requirements and to certify 

the accuracy of the expanding number of reports sent 

upward. 

The first time that officers sign an OER support 

form authenticating a counseling session that never 

happened or check a box saying, “I have read the 

above requirements” when they really only glanced 

at the 1,800-word IA acceptable use policy, they might 

feel a tinge of ethical concern. After repeated exposure to the burgeoning demands and the associated 

need to put their honor on the line, however, officers 

become ethically numb. Eventually, their signature 

and word become tools to maneuver through the 

Army bureaucracy rather than symbols of integrity 

and honesty.15 This desensitization dilutes the seriousness of an officer’s word and allows what should 

be an ethical decision to fade into just another way 

the Army does business. To make matters worse, 

technological advances and the cumulative effects of 
19

time have led to today’s officers facing a much larger amount of information to corroborate than their 

predecessors. 

Ethical fading is also influenced by the psychological distance from an individual to the actual point of 

dishonesty or deception. Lying, cheating, and stealing 

become easier to choose when there are more steps 

between an officer and the dishonest act—the greater 

the distance, the greater the chance for ethical fading.16

Thus, most officers would be extremely uncomfortable 

telling their rater face-to-face that their unit completed ARFORGEN pre-deployment NBC training when 

they, in fact, did not. Those same officers, however, 

would probably be more comfortable conveying the 

same mistruth via a block checked on the ARFORGEN 

checklist. Likewise, a digital, instead of handwritten, 

signature on a sponsorship form attesting that an officer was briefed on the sponsorship program prior to 

PCSing—when they were not—broadens the separation between the officer and the dishonest act. Even 

the Army’s ubiquitous PowerPoint charts provide 

briefers the ability to focus on intricate color coded 

metrics and thus distance themselves from the inaccurate or ambiguous information the metrics may be 

conveying. 

The psychological distance between a person and 

the consequences of a dishonest act can also influence ethical fading. A moral decision can lose its ethical overtones if the eventual repercussions of such a 

choice are either unknown or minimized. For example, the explanation of an officer concerning inaccurate storyboards is illustrative of the common perception that much of the information submitted upward 

disappears into the ether of the Army bureaucracy:
20

Where do the story boards go? They’re going to [a] 

magic storyboard heaven somewhere where there are 

billions of storyboards that are collected or logged 

somehow? After doing hundreds of storyboards, I 

honestly can’t tell you where any of them go. I send 

them to my battalion level element who does something with them who then sends them to some other 

element who eventually puts them on a screen in front 

of somebody who then prints them out and shreds 

them? I don’t know. 

Dismissing any potential damage that may result from a misleading or incomplete storyboard allows leaders to view the requirement as yet another 

petty bureaucratic obligation void of any ethical 

considerations. 

MAKING EXCUSES

With ethical fading serving to bolster the self-deception that problematic moral decisions are ethicsneutral, any remaining ethical doubts can be overcome by justifications and rationalizations. While 

discussions with officers revealed a wide assortment 

of justifications for unethical behavior, one rationalization appears to underlie all other rationalizations—

that dishonesty is often necessary because the directed 

task, the data requested, or the reporting requirement 

is unreasonable or “dumb.” When a demand is perceived as an irritation or annoyance, a person’s less 

than honest response almost becomes a compensatory act against the injustice.17 Officers convince themselves that instead of being unethical, they are really 

restoring a sense of balance and sanity to the Army. 

For example, one officer spoke of the distinction he 

made between useful and useless required reports:
21

You can [ask] anybody in this room—the purpose of 

sending a SALTA or declaring a TIC, CASEVAC—not 

a MEDEVAC nine lines—we definitely know why we 

do that stuff and why we’re reporting. And people 

jump. They’re timely. They’re accurate . . . But some 

of this stuff is: You need this for why? Show me in 

the reports guide that we use or wherever [that] this is 

actually a required report. Because right now it seems 

like you’re just wasting a unit leader’s time. 

Another officer rationalized how ethical standards 

should be loosened for requirements perceived as 

unimportant:

If it’s a green tab leader that’s asking me for information—the battalion commander, brigade commander, 

or something the division commander is going to 

see—then I would sit down and do it. That would be 

accurate reporting. If it was something that was going 

into a staff and wasn’t going to drive a critical decision 

the battalion made in terms of training or something 

I need to accomplish for a METL task . . . what goes 

up, goes up. Is it probably a little off? Yeah, there’s a 

margin of error. 

Finally, one officer, in euphemistic terms, summarized the Army’s tolerance for deception on seemingly 

meaningless requirements: 

I don’t think it’s that anyone expects you to lie. But 

I think there is an expectation of—I think the word 

is—equivocation . . . I don’t want to say it’s accepted, 

because that doesn’t sound good or it doesn’t sound 

right. But I think some expectation of equivocation is 

accepted on dumb things. 
22

Two other rationalizations are often used as justifications for dishonesty—mission accomplishment and 

supporting the troops. With these rationalizations, the 

use of deceit or submitting inaccurate information is 

viewed as an altruistic gesture carried out to benefit a 

unit or its soldiers. Officers reported that they sometimes needed to act as Robin Hood—going outside 

the ethical boundaries to assist others. As one officer 

nobly put it:

I’m just going to “check this box” . . . and if I’m 70% 

accurate—that’s good enough to 1) keep my guys out 

of trouble and 2) keep my boss out of trouble so we 

can keep doing good things for the country. 

One captain recalled an instance where an IED injured a platoon leader and his replacement during a 

relief in place. The incident required an assessment of 

possible traumatic brain injury for both lieutenants. 

The captain explained:

I falsified the [traumatic brain injury] report that 

changed a distance from the IED strike [to where] 

one person was standing. So that way someone didn’t 

come back down and stick a finger in my CO’s chest 

and say, “You need to evac that lieutenant right now!” 

Because in the middle of [a] RIP, that’s not going to 

happen. If I do that, I’m going to put my boys in bags 

because they don’t have any leadership. That ain’t 

happening. I owe the parents of this country more 

than that. 

Another officer rationalized how funds were deceptively obtained in theater on behalf of the troops:
23

It’s odd that in situations that I’ve been in, it’s never 

been blatant self-interest. It’s never been, “I’m going to 

get this money so I can buy myself two couches for my 

office while I’m in Afghanistan.” [Instead], it’s always 

like—for us, it was hard as hell to get water heaters. 

For some reason we could not get hot showers for our 

soldiers. It wasn’t CERP money, but we had to finagle 

God-knows-how-many organizations to finally get 

these things and we had to say we’re using this for 

this, when in fact it was so our guys could have hot 

showers when they get back off patrol. The truth of the 

matter is that, at the level that we’re at, a lot of times 

we gotta get it done and we’re going to find a way to 

do it.

Another officer accurately described how the 

rationalization process softens the sting of dishonesty:

You feel more comfortable if it’s not for us—if it’s for 

what we think is the greater good. Like [lying about] 

all the 350-1 requirements prior to going on block 

leave. I want my soldiers to go on leave . . . It’s not for 

me. It’s for the greater good. [But] that doesn’t mean 

it’s right. 

Rationalizing allows officers to maintain their 

self-image as a person of integrity despite acts of 

dishonesty. 

LYING TO OURSELVES

It may be that this monograph has merely identified a phenomenon that has existed quietly in the 

Army (and in most large bureaucracies) since time 

immemorial. It may be that lying to the “little old 

lady in tennis shoes” in order to clear post, fudging a 

trusted NCO’s weight on an NCOER, or writing off a 
24

CONEX of surplus Oakleys is emblematic of actions 

that the Army will seldom discuss, but will always 

tolerate. Perhaps the stereotypical supply sergeant’s 

response of “You don’t want to know” will always 

be the proper response to the question of “Where 

did this stuff come from?” It could be that as long as 

dishonesty and deceit are restricted to the trivial and 

bothersome aspects of the Army, the status quo represents the best way to deal with an out of control, 

overbearing Army bureaucracy. After all, dishonesty 

in the Army is not new. For example, in the summer of 1970, researchers at the U.S. Army War College published the Study on Military Professionalism

which found that, “Inaccurate reporting—rampant 

throughout the Army and perceived by every grade 

level sampled from O-2 through O-7—is significant.”18

The report quoted a captain who, at the height of the 

Vietnam War, stated that, “It’s necessary today, to 

lie, cheat, and steal to meet the impossible demands 

of higher officers or continue to meet the statistical 

requirements.”19

Acquiescence to the status quo because the Army 

has been dogged by the same problems in the past, 

however, ignores several potentially destructive implications of the current culture. First, while discussions revealed that nearly all officers were confident 

in their ability to correctly determine which requirements were trivial or nonsensical, those judgments 

can vary widely across individuals and groups. For 

example, some officers offered that not reporting a 

negligent discharge (ND) was a common example of 

acceptable lying, especially when it was a simple mistake and easily remedied without getting higher headquarters involved. Other officers, particularly those in 
25

the combat arms, insisted that an ND was a serious 

breach of discipline and leaders were duty bound to 

send a report upward. Similarly, some officers were 

aghast that anyone would submit inaccurate or incomplete storyboards, while others were much more 

accepting of less than precise submissions. Confusion 

and inconsistency across the force result from allowing individual interpretations to determine where to 

delineate the bounds of acceptable dishonesty. As one 

captain astutely noted:

I think a real danger—since it’s unsaid and it’s not out 

there— is [that] we’re requiring every single person at 

every single level to make their own determination on 

what they want to lie about. Because we’re all setting 

a different standard and because we can’t talk about 

it, we’re obviously going to have the potential for the 

guys who take it too far. 

Tolerating a level of dishonesty in areas deemed 

trivial or unimportant also results in the degradation 

of the trust that is vital to the military profession. Once 

the bar of ethical standards is lowered, the malleability of those standards becomes a rationale for other unethical decisions. For example, one officer explained 

why CERP money was easily misused:

I think the reason why we have an easier time accepting that CERP money might be used by people falsely 

is because you look at the institutional Army and see 

all the fraud, waste, and abuse that happens at every 

level. 

The slippery slope of ethical compromise is a real 

and legitimate danger to the assumption of truth in 

the profession. Noted ethicist Sissella Bok explains 

this threat in more detail:
26

Of course, we know that many lies are trivial. But since 

we, when lied to, have no way to judge which lies are 

the trivial ones, and since we have no confidence that 

liars will restrict themselves to just such trivial lies, the 

perspective of the deceived leads us to be wary of all

deception.20

Just as it is imprudent to expect absolute impeccability from the officer corps, it is also foolhardy 

to condone a casual view of deceit and duplicity in 

the ranks. Disregarding the pervasive dishonesty 

throughout the Army leads to the eventual conclusion 

that nothing and no one can be trusted. As Saint Augustine wisely noted, “When regard for truth has been 

broken down or even slightly weakened, all things remain doubtful.”21

Making excuses for an acceptable level of dishonesty also provides cover for deception that is less nobly motivated. While difficult to admit, many officers 

acutely feel the pressure of peer competition influencing their ethical decisions. As one officer pointed out:

You’re a bad leader and you failed if you didn’t get 

everyone through the hour-long human trafficking 

thing. All the other company commanders in the United States Army somehow managed to do it and you’re 

gonna be the only guy that didn’t do it because you 

[truthfully] reported 85%.

Careerism is a potent force that serves as a catalyst 

for dishonesty. The current downsizing intensifies the 

competition in the ranks with very few officers desiring to be “alone on the island.” In the words of one 

candid officer:
27

We’re all kind of vultures. The one guy [who told 

the truth] – get him. He exposed himself. And no one 

wants to stand out. We all see reductions are being 

made. If you’re looking to do this [stay in the Army] 

for a long period of time, your intent is to appease the 

person above you. Just like the person you’re appeasing made that decision a long time ago. 

Convincing ourselves that deceitfulness in the 

Army is mostly well-intentioned altruism serves to 

mask the caustic effects of lying, cheating, or stealing 

for self-advancement. As a very perceptive captain 

observed:

In our own eyes and our perspective, we do things for 

the right reasons. When you really come down to it 

[though], the big question is that while you may be 

saying you did it for the good of your men, or you did 

it for the right reasons, how is that different at the end 

of the day from someone who didn’t? 

The gravest peril of the tacit acceptance of dishonesty, however, is the facilitation of hypocrisy in Army 

leaders. The Army as a profession speaks of values, 

integrity, and honor. The Army as an organization 

practices zero defects, pencil-whipping, and checking 

the box. Army leaders are situated between the two 

identities—parroting the talking points of the latest 

Army Profession Campaign while placating the Army 

bureaucracy or civilian overseers by telling them what 

they want to hear. As a result, Army leaders learn to 

talk of one world while living in another. A major described the current trend: 

It’s getting to the point where you’re almost rewarded 

for being somebody you’re not. That’s a dangerous situation especially now as we downsize. We’re creating 
28

an environment where everything is too rosy because 

everyone is afraid to paint the true picture. You just 

wonder where it will break, when it will fall apart. 

At the strategic level, it is this hypocrisy that allows 

senior Army leaders to unconcernedly shift a billion 

dollars to overseas contingency operations funding to 

minimize the base budget or to brief as fact the number of sexual assault response coordinators when the 

data are obviously suspect. At the operational level, it 

is this self-deception that makes it easy for leaders to 

dismiss equivocation and false reports to “bad” units 

and attribute pencil-whipping and fudging to “weak” 

leaders. At the tactical level, it is this duplicity that 

allows leaders to “feed the beast” bogus information 

while maintaining a self-identity of someone who 

does not lie, cheat, or steal. 

CONFRONTING THE TRUTH

While the preceding pages paint a somewhat dire 

picture, there is still much to be celebrated in the military profession. The military remains a noble profession filled with competent and committed servants 

of the nation. And yet the profession’s foundation of 

trust is slowly being eroded by the corrupting influence of duplicity and deceit. Ignoring dishonesty as 

a minor shortcoming or writing it off as an inevitable 

aspect of bureaucracy accomplishes nothing. Instead, 

the Army must take some rather drastic measures in 

order to correct the current deleterious culture. Three 

broad recommendations are offered here. Each will be 

difficult to implement because of the entrenched culture, but each is critical to restoring trust in the Army 

profession. 
29

Acknowledge the Problem. 

Dishonesty is a topic that many in the Army are 

extremely uncomfortable discussing openly. While 

junior officers tend to freely describe their struggles 

in maintaining their integrity in a culture that breeds 

dishonesty, senior officers are often reluctant to admit 

their personal failings in front of subordinates (or in 

the case of very senior officers, their peers). The need 

to preserve a “professional” appearance is just too 

strong for many senior officers to personalize their 

dealings with the Army culture. They can easily lecture about the ideals of integrity and honor, but many 

find it extremely difficult to admit that they too have 

encountered (and currently live with) a culture that 

condones dishonesty. The result is that dishonesty in 

the Army can be a topic for DFAC lunch table gripe 

sessions, but seldom for LPDs or addresses by senior 

leaders. In the meantime, the requirements passed 

down from higher become more numerous and the 

slow slide down the ethical slope continues. Until a 

candid exchange concerning dishonesty begins, the 

current culture will not improve. 

Openly dealing with deception in the Army formation also serves to prevent a subtle hazard of the current situation—hubris. In the past 2 decades, the Army 

has dramatically revitalized its status as a profession. 

There has been a resurgence in analyzing the Army as 

a profession and examining all the attendant implications. Additionally, polls show that public confidence 

in the military remains the highest of all American institutions, and it is still common for those in uniform 

to hear, “Thank you for your service” from complete 

strangers. Indeed, the professional all-volunteer force 

has served the nation well in a difficult time of war 

and conflict. 
30

The effusive public adulation and constant professional self-talk, however, can also lead to excessive 

pride and self-exaltation. Overconfidence can leave 

officers—especially those at the senior level—vulnerable to the belief that they are unimperiled by the temptations and snares found at the common level of life. 

The ease of fudging on a TDY voucher, the enticement 

of improper gifts, and the allure of an illicit relationship are minimized and discounted as concerns faced 

by lesser mortals. 

Tradition has it that in ancient Rome, a triumphant general would ride in a celebratory procession 

through the city after a key battlefield victory. Always 

standing in the chariot behind the general, however, 

was a slave who whispered into the ear of the general, 

“Respice post te! Hominem te memento!” meaning “Look 

behind you! Remember that you are but a man!”22

Acknowledging organizational and individual fallibilities is the first step toward changing the culture of 

dishonesty plaguing the Army. 

Exercise Restraint. 

It is no secret that units and individuals are overwhelmed by the amount of requirements and directives placed upon them. Therefore, restraint must 

be established in the amount of mandatory training 

passed down to the force. Instead of making lower level leaders decide which mandatory training or directive they will ignore (but still report 100 percent compliance), leaders at the strategic level must shoulder 

the burden of prioritizing which directives are truly 

required. Abdicating that responsibility at the senior 

level understandably avoids the unpleasant task of informing a proponent, stakeholder, or constituent that 

his or her particular concern is not a top priority in the 
31

Army. Additionally, it gives the Army plausible deniability if something does go wrong. But it also leaves 

leaders at the lowest levels with no choice but to sacrifice their integrity in order to prop up the façade that 

all is well. 

Of course, exercising restraint is difficult in an 

organization as large as the Army. Each staff, each 

level of headquarters, and each senior leader that 

adds a requirement earnestly believes in the importance and necessity of that requirement. Therefore 

restraint cannot be achieved merely by announcing it 

and expecting everyone to curb their propensity for 

new ideas. Instead, restraint will be exercised when a 

central authority, armed with a clear understanding 

of the time and resource constrained environment of 

the Army, examines and vets the entirety of requirements. While AR 350-1, Army Training and Leader 

Development, is the obvious candidate for this added 

scrutiny, ALARACTS, policies from major commands, and directives from all headquarters should 

also be analyzed in regard to their impact on the 

cumulative load. 

Restraint also needs to be introduced into the 

rampant use of an officer’s integrity for frivolous purposes. Too often, the Army turns to an officer’s integrity to verify compliance of minor concerns instead 

of other means such as sampling or auditing. For example, requiring all officers to attest on their OERs 

that they have initiated a multi-source assessment and 

feedback (MSAF) in the last 3 years probably has the 

well-intended purpose of socializing the force to 360° 

feedback. But the unanticipated outcome has been the 

diminution of the gravitas of an officer’s signature as 

rated officers, raters, and senior raters dismiss the requirement as an administrative nuisance rather than 

an ethical choice. (That the MSAF requirement could 
32

be easily verified through automation compounds the 

problem). The Army must restore the dignity and seriousness of an officer’s word by requiring it for consequential issues rather than incidental administrative 

requirements. 

Lead Truthfully. 

As the institution acknowledges the current situation and begins exercising restraint, leaders at all levels must focus on leading truthfully. Leading truthfully dismantles the façade of mutually agreed deception 

by putting considerations of the integrity of the profession back into the decisionmaking process. Thus, 

at the senior level, leading truthfully may include 

informing a political appointee that while bath salts 

are a scourge to American teens, the problem may not 

merit Army-wide mandatory training until some other 

topic is removed. Leading truthfully may also include 

tolerating risk by striving for 100 percent compliance 

in all areas, but being satisfied when only 85 percent is 

reported in some. Leading truthfully may also involve 

brutally honest reporting from subordinates who 

risk being labeled malcontents or slackers because of 

their candor. 

A focused emphasis on leading truthfully goes beyond inserting an online block of instruction on ethics, scheduling an ethics stand down, or creating an 

ethics center of excellence. Instead, leading truthfully 

attempts to preempt ethical fading by examining the 

moral implications of a leader’s decision first instead 

of rationalizing them away after the fact. Finally, leading truthfully changes the culture gradually and will 

only be effective if embraced by all leaders, not just a 

token few. 
33

The Army profession rests upon a bedrock of trust. 

That trust continues to be treasured and guarded, 

but an alternative ethical reality has emerged where 

junior officers are socialized into believing that pencil-whipping the stats and feeding the beast are not 

only routine, but expected. This alternative reality is 

a place where senior officers romanticize the past and 

convince themselves that they somehow managed to 

achieve their station in life without tarnishing their 

own integrity. 

Unfortunately, the boundaries of this parallel 

ethical universe are slowly expanding into more and 

more of the profession. Ethical fading and rampant 

rationalizations have allowed leaders to espouse lofty 

professional values while slogging through the mire 

of dishonesty and deceit. The end result is a corrosive 

ethical culture that few acknowledge and even fewer 

discuss or work to correct. The Army urgently needs 

to address the corrupting influence of dishonesty in 

the Army profession. This monograph is but one small 

step toward initiating that conversation and perhaps 

stimulating a modicum of action. 

ENDNOTES

1. Rear Admiral John Kirby, Department of Defense Press 

Briefing, February 5, 2014, available from www.defense.gov/

transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5367.

2. Helene Cooper, “Air Force Fires 9 Officers in Scandal Over 

Cheating on Proficiency Tests,” The New York Times, March 27, 

2014, available from www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/us/air-force-fires9-officers-accused-in-cheating-scandal.html?_r=0. (Correction: February 20, 2015. A previous version mistakenly stated that half of 

the missile crews in the Air Force were involved in the cheating 

scandal. The scandal involved half of the missile crews at one 

base.)
34

3. David S. Cloud, “Navy Investigating a Cheating Scandal 

of Its Own,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2014, available from 

www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-military-problems-20140205,0,441554.

story#axzz2seN1PiPZ.

4. Jim Tice, “Too many overweight soldiers,” Army Times, 

August 25, 2014, pp. 18-19. 

5. Kirby.

6. Departments of Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2, The Armed Forces Officer, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1988, p. 

2, available from www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/p600_2.pdf.

7. Headquarters, Department of the Army, “The Army 

Training and Leader Development Panel Officer Study Report 

to the Army,” Washington, DC: Department of the Army, June 

2001, pp. 2-9.

8. Leonard Wong, Stifling Innovation: Developing Tomorrow’s 

Leaders Today, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, 2002.

9. Department of the Army Inspector General Report, Disciplined Leadership and Company Administrative Requirements Inspection, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, Office of the 

Inspector General, 2012. 

10. Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from discussions 

held by the authors with officers and civilians. 

11. Department of the Army, Army Profession Campaign CY11 

Report, Volume II, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

January 20, 2012, p. 104. 

12. “Confidence in Congress Stays at Lowest Point in Almost 

Fifty Years,” Harris Interactive, May 21, 2012, available from www.

harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/mid/1508/

articleId/1068/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/Default.aspx.
35

13. Ann E. Tenbrunsel and David M. Messick, “Ethical fading: 

The Role of Self-Deception in Unethical Behavior,” Social Justice 

Research, Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2004, p. 224. Also see Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Blind Spots, Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 2011, pp. 30-31. 

14.Tenbrunsel and Messick refer to such phrases as language 

euphemisms, p. 226. 

15. See Albert Bandura, “Selective Moral Disengagement in 

the Exercise of Moral Agency,” Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 

31, No. 2, 2002, pp. 101-119, for how repeated exposure leads to 

moral disengagement. 

16.Dan Ariely, The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty, New York: 

HarperCollins, 2012, p. 59.

17. Ariely, pp. 177-178. 

18. Study on Military Professionalism, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army 

War College, 1970, p. 20.

19. Ibid., p. B-1-28. 

20. Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, 

New York: Random House, 1999, p. 21, (emphasis in the original). 

21. Saint Augustine, “On Lying,” Philip Schaff, ed., A Select 

Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 

Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887, available from 

oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2273.

22. Tertullian, Apologeticus, Chapter 33, available from 

www.tertullian.org/articles/mayor_apologeticum/mayor_apolog

eticum_07translation.htm.
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