Replacing Exemplary Conduct With “Crowd Control” and “Counseling”
Today I read the Marine Corps Times magazine from cover to cover, a lot of words with a little information. I was looking for an ah-ha moment when I would understand what has happened to our standard of Exemplary Conduct, but the multiple references to the sexual assault crisis made no mention of the statutes governing our military leaders.
When I finished reading the Marine Corps Times, the information that stuck in my mind was the new training described on page 3. The article begins, “on the modern battlefield, a Marine often assumes the role of police officer and diplomat.” Here are the weapons our Marines will be trained to use:
- Tools for urban patrol, crowd control, and detaining people, including batons and hand cuffs.
- A fog horn that translates messages over a loud speaker.
- A Magnetic Audio Device that herds unruly crowds
- A grenade that incapacitates a person with electricity
- A radio-frequency that can kill an engine on a boat
- A radio frequency that when aimed at a person causes an intense burning sensation.
Clearly these are not weapons of war. These are weapons of martial law. They will control, in Patrick Henry’s words, “a corrupted public conscience” and a “people who have forgotten God.” External to the military, there is a focus on controlling crowds; internal to the military, the sex assault crisis is discussed amongst ever-increasing programs of education and counseling.
According to our founders, our internal and external crises must be addressed with virtue. Consider these quotes from the founding era. It was so clear to our founders that virtue, honor, and patriotism would form the basis of our society!
Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.” – George Washington
“Laws without morals are in vain.” – Benjamin Franklin (Motto of the University of Pennsylvania)
“A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” – Patrick Henry
The military needs to teach and enforce our standard of virtue, which began with Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America, enacted by John Adams on November 28th, 1775, and re-codified in 1997 for every branch of service.
Title 10, United States Code, 1997, §5947, § 3583, § 8583.
Requirement of Exemplary Conduct
“All commanding officers and others in authority in the Air Force are required: (1) to show in themselves a good example of virtue, honor, patriotism, and subordination; (2) to be vigilant in inspecting the conduct of all persons who are placed under their command; (3) to guard against and suppress all dissolute and immoral practices, and to correct, according to the laws and regulations of the Air Force, all persons who are guilty of them; and (4) to take all necessary and proper measures, under the laws, regulations, and customs of the Air Force, to promote and safeguard the morale, the physical well being, and the general welfare of the officers and enlisted persons under their command or charge.”
These statutes are still in full force and effect, but are completely abandoned by current Military Leadership. Our founders understood that a nation will choose either virtue or vice. Have we as a nation chosen vice? A sexual assault crisis and crowd control training in our military would suggest that we have. Our Congress, which according to the Constitution, Article 1, Sec. 8, is responsible for governing our military, must call for the enforcement of our military First Principles. The statistics are screaming for a change in direction.
Linda Jeffrey, Ed. D.
Research Department
First Principles Press
