{"id":173,"date":"2008-04-30T20:50:50","date_gmt":"2008-05-01T00:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=173"},"modified":"2009-09-02T12:41:32","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T16:41:32","slug":"ethics-and-professional-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/30\/ethics-and-professional-conduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics and Professional Conduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our service succeeds only because of the integrity of our Airmen…
\n– Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ethical challenges are a virtual certainty in the military.\u00a0 While some instances are \u201cobvious,\u201d like temptations to steal or cheat, some situations are unique in the military environment.\u00a0 For example, a variety of Air Force members\u2014including one general officer\u2014were recently<\/a> punished for inappropriate influence in regard to a $50 million contract for the Thunderbirds.\u00a0 It is unlikely that many of those involved considered themselves to be overtly \u201ccheating\u201d or \u201cstealing,\u201d yet the actions were treated just as severely.\u00a0 A few years ago, two Boeing executives (one a recent Air Force retiree) were sentenced to prison for unethical conduct with respect to ongoing government negotiations.\u00a0 Because the Air Force\u2014and the military as a whole\u2014depends on the public trust, it cannot allow appearances of impropriety to prevail.\u00a0 No one must ever be given a reason to doubt the integrity of the military, or its officers.<\/p>\n

Both of the previous examples dealt with military contracting, a section of the military which has its own host of unique rules, but \u201cgray areas\u201d in ethical boundaries exist in all specialties in the military, including Security Forces, engineering, personnel, and operations.\u00a0 In his address<\/a> to the cadets at the Air Force Academy, Secretary Wynne acknowledged that they will face temptations that could challenge\u2014or compromise\u2014their character.<\/p>\n

Character, defined by integrity, service and excellence all “define the culture that lives within the Air Force.”
\n– Secretary Wynne<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While such statements may seem trite, officers will continue to hear encouragements to maintain indisputable ethics, and they will continue to hear scandals of fellow military members who have not done so (as occurred recently<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Beyond personal conduct, though, what influence can a military Christian have on his peers or profession?\u00a0 The quickest answer is that he should strive to the highest moral standard, but he cannot become the moral monitor of his peers.\u00a0 He can express displeasure with someone if they pencil whip<\/a>, backdate<\/a>, use bad gouge<\/a> or otherwise act with questionable ethics, but if he falls on his sword for every occasion, he\u2019ll quickly wear himself out with all the falling down and getting up.\u00a0 If people with situation ethics<\/a> see their actions as inconsequential, a Christian will be hard-pressed to convince them to act a more difficult way just because he thinks it\u2019s more ethical. In short, he should choose his battles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also fairly ineffective in most situations (and potentially inappropriate, depending on the circumstances) to address issues in religious terms.\u00a0 While the ultimate moral basis for an ethical action may be found in the Bible, it\u2019s generally more effective to frame it in terms of safety and legality, to which even an unchurched person can relate.\u00a0 As previous examples have shown, ethically questionable actions may not\u00a0only\u00a0significantly impact an individual’s\u00a0career, but also\u00a0the reputation of the military as a whole.\u00a0 Thus, in the military there are even good “non-religious” reasons for making morally and ethically correct decisions.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, a Christian should strive to ensure that his reputation is of one who doesn\u2019t need to compromise his ethics to accomplish his job well.\u00a0 With that reputation his mere presence may strengthen the ethics of those with whom he works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our service succeeds only because of the integrity of our Airmen… – Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne Ethical challenges are a virtual certainty in the military.\u00a0 While some instances are \u201cobvious,\u201d like temptations to steal or cheat, some situations are unique in the military environment.\u00a0 For example, a variety of Air Force members\u2014including one general officer\u2014were recently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-regulations","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}