Cheating Officer: Everybody Does It
Former US Marine 2nd Lieutenant Adam Ballard has given his excuse for his lapse in integrity, in which he cheated on a land navigation test: everybody’s doing it, and it was the school’s fault:
Ballard admits his actions were wrong but said they were facilitated by “inordinately lax procedures at [the basic officer school]…”
Over half of the three hundred Marines in our company possessed the same information that I had and that those numbers were comparable, if not more, in all the other training companies past and present…
As noted here often, neither a “culture” that seems to encourage cheating, nor a tangible disadvantage for not cheating are excuses for making the “easier” wrong choice.
Thanks for making that point. Just because “everybody is doing it” doesn’t mean YOU have to do it (what I screamed at the article after his comment). What does that have to do with his integrity or lack thereof? If nothing else, I would imagine one of the most important things taught at the USNA or any military training environment is that one must posess a good sense of integrity, character, and a strong moral compass to successfully handle the various situations a military servicemember, especially an officer, must face. I hope learns to take responsibility for his own actions.