Next time you hear terms like virtue, honor, and the “profession of arms” in relation to the U.S. military, it might be worth questioning if these words still hold any real significance.
Take a look at the military structure, where the top ranks often seem to engage in questionable practices. There are cases of influence peddling, commanders making arrangements for future jobs, theft of equipment before deployment, and exploiting resources for personal gain. It’s a troubling picture where high-ranking officers and other personnel exploit their positions, sometimes even defrauding grieving families and taking funds meant for military children.
We see everything from petty theft to serious misconduct being overlooked, while the military continues to preach ideals of honor.
It almost feels like, in some absurdity, we’ve become like a mercenary group—where the uniform is just another way to profit. The current officer corps appears not only politically lost but also lacking any solid moral foundation.
Alasdair MacIntyre, in his influential work “After Virtue,” posits that although we still use terms like “honor,” “duty,” and “integrity,” we’ve lost the traditions that actually give these words any real weight. He suggests we are like survivors of a calamity, left with remnants of a system that has lost its coherent theory. This is symbolized through the appropriated values of the military.
The erosion of military culture is starkly shown in how it responds to scandals—there’s always a promise of updates, calls for stand-downs, and comments on the symbolism of uniforms, but true change fails to materialize. The core issue isn’t an information gap; it’s about organizational leadership.
MacIntyre argues that real virtue and honor can’t just be taught; they require practice—an ongoing, collective community effort with shared standards and purpose. To cultivate honorable individuals, they must be immersed in environments where virtue is both expected and visibly rewarded. Consequently, the community should also be quick to punish any lack of virtue.
These so-called Army values are little more than echoes of morality, recited slogans by a culture that can no longer connect with what made those values significant in the first place.
The language supports this. Rarely do you hear someone exclaiming, “that’s disgraceful.” Such words hang in the air as if relics of a past generation. In modern discourse, terms like “unethical” or “unprofessional” take precedence, but calling someone a disgrace just sounds outdated, perhaps even comical. It raises the inevitable question of how organizations can uphold standards when the terminology itself has become laughable.
Honor Factory
This wasn’t always the case. For most of American military history, places like West Point and Annapolis instilled a sense of honor in young recruits through immediate and public consequences. Cadets who strayed—by lying, cheating, or stealing—didn’t get second chances; they were dismissed, and everyone knew exactly why.
The effectiveness of this system came from the intertwining of honor and shame, because shame often requires a witness.
The outcomes were no accident. The officer corps that fought in major wars was shaped by institutions that demanded integrity. Sure, those officers had their flaws, but their understanding of honor was honed through rigorous practice.
However, the way honor is awarded in military academies has become bureaucratized, with numerous safeguards and alternative punishments replacing straightforward accountability.
These organizations, previously stringent, have been liberalized and transformed into costly institutes resembling state universities. Despite the rhetoric about honor, the structures surrounding it judge dishonor as merely a matter of administrative evaluation rather than a community failure.
There hasn’t been a societal cataclysm forcing a reevaluation of what bravery and loyalty truly entail. Instead, the culture of honor has quietly disintegrated over just one generation, especially following the civilianization of military culture after the Vietnam War, which introduced pressures to mirror the competitiveness of civilian institutions.
Legal protections have multiplied, complicating swift expulsion for dishonorable conduct during this transitional period. Additionally, the rise of diversity and equity initiatives has fostered concerns that strict enforcement of honor could lead to unfair outcomes for certain groups.
Individually, these pressures are debatable, yet collectively they’ve produced unintended consequences. Essentially, an institution previously dedicated to developing true officers has shifted to merely qualifying them. Actual formation demands authority to enforce standards, while certification only needs students to complete the curriculum.
The upside is that these policy decisions, while theoretically reversible, present challenges that make them difficult to change back. Unlike military operations that leave wreckage behind, this shift has made things more cushy and manageable.
Rebuilding the Culture
Military academies are the last remaining bastions of comprehensive institutions within the U.S. military. If honor cannot be restored there, it’s doubtful it can be revitalized anywhere else, as no other agency holds enough authority to do the necessary work.
The solution, while straightforward, requires moral courage. Honor violations need rapid public penalties visible to the community. Administrators must empower cadets to lead an honor system with real authority, rather than relying on bureaucratic oversight that can be appealed or reviewed.
We need an environment where dishonor is met not with pity, but with collective shame—where a cadet’s failure is felt widely, reinforcing the gravity of maintaining virtue.
The honor code’s zero-tolerance policy (which prohibits lying, cheating, stealing, or tolerating such behaviors) used to be a compelling force for compliance. It engaged the entire Corps in the maintenance of these values, rather than weakening them through policies of coercion.
When a cadet breaks the honor code at places like the Virginia Military Institute, the commander would announce this to the entire regiment. The unfortunate party would face immediate expulsion in a public ceremony, ensuring everyone knew the consequences.
Recently, however, amid legal and political constraints, VMI ceased publicizing the names of expelled cadets during these ceremonies, effectively removing the audience needed for the social techniques enforcing honor.
The objective is clear: to convey that dishonor equates to not just a career blow but social death. The burden now lies with those defending the existing system, which produces high-ranking officers who can leave under a cloud, encounter minor embarrassment, and quickly re-establish themselves in prominent roles.
The academy cannot accomplish this on its own—there’s no reasonable way to argue otherwise—but it remains the singular starting point for the military to initiate change.
When systems neglect to uphold virtue through honor, the only recourse is finding individuals to enforce these principles from the inside out—those who might not be held accountable to the military but are unwaveringly responsible to themselves and refuse to become complicit in corruption.
The overarching goal of military academies is to cultivate leaders who can win battles while preserving their moral integrity. We were never built to be mere cogs in a machine; there’s a greater purpose at play.
What we truly need is a profound revival: a rebirth on the occasion of America’s 250th anniversary, driven by the belief in values that matter beyond material possessions.
