MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, Calif. -- When America views, on video, service members urinating on dead corpses, throwing puppies off cliffs, and getting news of service members killing more than 400 innocent civilians in the village of My Lai, (Mee Lahy) Vietnam, professional military education on ethics is called for.
On July 31, Marines aboard Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow attended an ethics stand-down at the Maj. Gen. James L. Day Conference Center, in memory of Hugh Thompson Jr, an Army chief warrant officer during the Vietnam War, whose moral courage and ethical values saved dozens of innocent civilians in Vietnam.
General James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, called for this stand-down due to unethical conduct in our past. Marine administrative message 362/12 directed base commanders and senior enlisted advisors to discuss ethics, moral judgment, and the importance of accountability and discipline with their troops.
The ethics PME was led by Col. Michael L. Scalise, commanding officer of MCLB Barstow and Sgt. Maj. Richard Charron, the base sergeant major. The Marines were educated through lecture, guided power point and various videos, which depicted the unethical behavior some people display in certain scenarios; people in power abusing their authority and individuals not having the moral courage to stand up to their peers or misguided leaders.
In March 1968, U.S. soldiers killed more than 400 innocent civilians in the Vietnam village of My Lai. This included group acts of murder, rape, sodomizing, maiming and assault on women and children.
The troops were ordered to kill everyone in the village, and they ruthlessly followed the orders given. None of the soldiers, until Thompson flew over, questioned their orders or challenged their commanders.
“Conformity can be a negative side of cohesion if Corps values of individuals are eroded,” said Charron, a native of Hackensack, N.J.
Thompson was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. When he saw what soldiers were doing in My Lai, he landed his helicopter and blocked U.S. troops from a group of surviving villagers. He then ordered his own men to open fire on fellow soldiers if they were to fire on the survivors. The chief warrant officer saved dozens of civilians to include women, children and elders, with his acts of moral courage.
The Vietnam War was a different kind of war. Americans were getting killed by booby traps, mines and sniper fire, explained Scalise, a native of Hampton, Iowa. They couldn’t see or actually fight the enemy for the majority of the war.
“Sometimes emotions cause us to abandon our rational thoughts and shifts our moral judgment from long-term absolutes, to short-term pragmatic solutions,” said Charron. “It’s not an easy thing to do but shifts can be dangerous.”
“Marines don’t do that,” the sergeant major said forcefully.
However, that’s exactly what American troops did in My Lai; they let their emotions get to them, resulting in hundreds of innocent deaths.
“Good people can be induced, seduced and initiated into behaving in evil ways,” said Professor Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University, whose 1971 experiment was featured in the ethics stand-down.
Zimbardo set up a mock prison scenario with 18 young men split up between guards and prisoners. Just into the second day, guards started to take advantage of their power and abuse the prisoners. Six days and one nervous break-down later, Zimbardo stopped the scheduled two-week experiment before someone was hurt.
“That’s what sets Marines apart, the American public expects more from Marines,” said Charron, in response to Zimbardo’s experiment.
When Charron asked the crowd of Marines what they took from the PME, 1st Sgt. Arthur Hernandez responded with, “Always know who you are, where you are and what your responsibilities are.”
For military personnel or civilians, ethics can be as important as saving hundreds of lives, or as little as returning extra change given by a cashier.
“We must learn from our shortcomings and ensure they don’t happen again,” said Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett, 17th sergeant major of the Marine Corps, during an introduction video to the ethics stand-down.