If I am willing to pay the cost, which may be quite severe, nothing can force me to obey an order that goes against my conscience. Now, it is obvious that every PER will not contain examples of an individual admitting a mistake. Were such to be done, I believe that there would be a concomitant and major improvement in the ethical stance of the forces in a very short time. As can be seen from the preceding three paragraphs, my approach to military decision-making is much different from what I believe to be the traditional bureaucratic model. Bureaucracy lives generally by the principle, Don t make waves.
Waves have a tendency to make trouble for the government.
Military leadership, on the other hand, has an entirely different, and I believe essential approach. I think it is a lot easier to follow these twin approaches when one is in face to face contact with the people one commands. The greater the distance from the troops at the coal face, the more difficult it is to avoid slipping into a bureaucratic mould, particularly when your primary job has become the management of resources rather than the direct command of troops. But a professional officer should always have the words of his or her commission scroll in the forefront of their decision-making pattern. That should provide at least some antidote to the poison of bureaucratic thought.