The Evolution of Military
tary codes of honor define the sensibilities of the
Ethos over the Ages
A Matter of Honor
By Peter R. Mansoor
I n his 2013 commencement address at the Unit-
ed States Naval Academy, President Barack
Obama invoked honor as the guiding hght for
American mñitary personnel. "We need your
Honor — that inner compass that guides you, not
when the path is easy and obvious, but when it's
hard and uncertain; that tells you the difference
between that which is right and that which is
wrong," the U.S. commander in chief stated. "Per-
haps it wül be a moment when you think nobody
is watching. But never forget that honor, hke char-
acter, is what you do when nobody is looking."'
Other military institutions — today and in the
past — define honor differently. Societies devise
distinct "warrior codes" for their armed forces.
Honor plays a large role in these precepts, but
the concept morphs with the mores of the cul-
ture-at-large that generates them. The appeal to
honor summons a deep-seated ethic to moderate
an inherently violent profession. In this sense,
honor to military personnel is indeed what they
do when nobody else is looking. However, what
exactly they do in such circumstances has varied
greatly over the ages.
Military codes of honor are as old as record-
ed history. The Spartans, for instance, built
their society around one so strict that warriors
were told when going into battle to return with
their shields — or on them. Meaning: Face the
enemy bravely or be carried back to Sparta as
corpses.^ These codes reflected societal views
of the ideal characteristics for warriors.' For
Spartans, honorable conduct revolved around
courage in battle: the ability to face death with
composure, even contempt.'' This emphasis
made a great deal of sense in an era in which
combat meant facing the enemy in hand-to-
hand combat.
Determining the honor in certain vio-
lent deeds, including stabbing or shoot-
ing an enemy with a sword or gun, pro-
pelling deadly projectiles with a bow or
javelin, or pushing a button that launch-
es a missile, binds warriors together in combat
and may protect them from experiencing guilt
over killing, keeping "them from crossing over
into an inescapable heart of darkness."' Having
served two combat tours in the Iraq War, I can
attest to the need to understand that one's role in
West Point cadets sing "The Corps"
hymn at commencement in May 2011.
Mass Communication Spc. 1 '' Class Chad J. McNeeley.
U.S. Navy/defenseimagery.mii
killing has been sanctioned by society, for mili-
nation, as Obama noted. These dicta have been,
and continue to be, a powerful psychological
force in the shaping of soldiers.
Ancient warriors
For ancient warriors, honorable conduct
started and often ended with skill and courage
in battle. One of the great pieces of ancient war
literature. Homer's The Iliad, cites honor no
fewer than 109 times, not least because the ulti-
mate cause of the Trojan War, fought in 12*
century B.C., was the despouing of the honor of
King Menelaus of Sparta when his wife Helen
fled Greece with her abductor/lover Paris, a
Trojan prince. Both Greek and Trojan leaders
trumpeted honor to fortify their subordinates in
combat. To fight bravely was honorable; to flee
brought disgrace. During an early struggle be-
fore the walls of Troy, Agamemnon, the son of
King Atreus of Mycenae, who fought as part of
the Greek alliance, exhorted Greek soldiers,
"My friends, quit yourselves like brave men,
and shun dishonour in one another's eyes
amid the stress of battle. They that shun
dishonour more often live than get killed,
but they that fly save neither life nor
name."* In a later engagement. Prince Hector,
the foremost commander of Trojan forces, en-
couraged his men in comparable fashion:
"Therefore swarm round the ships and fight. If
any of you is struck by spear or sword and loses
his life, let him die; he dies with honour who
dies fighting for his country."' In the same bat- God, requiring ceaseless thankfulness."'^ While French Revolution, a distinct officer class emerged
tle, the Greek commander Ajax rallied his the modern sense of honor implies trustworthi- to lead organized forces into battle and manage vi-
troops, "My friends, be men, and fear dishon- ness and honesty, throughout much of history olence on behalf of the state. Many if not most
our; quit yourselves in battle so as to win respect honor was earned not by good conduct in every- officers were of noble lineage, and they followed
from one another. Men who respect each other's day life but by great deeds in battle, "at someone aims and models descendant from the knights of
good opinion are less likely to be killed than else's expense through force."''' old and further honed over the centuries. Officers
those who do not, but in flight there is neither On the other side of the world, Japanese were to be not just courageous and skilled leaders
gain nor glory. "*' samurai also invoked of men in battle, but also gentlemen who dis-
The Athenian general Pericles re- honor as a central tenet played rectitude and decorum at all times.
inforced this point in his funeral ora- of their philosophy. T'hey also defended their reputation at all
tion during the first year of the Pelo- The Bushido code, or costs. This mindset led to the custom of dueling
ponnesian War, the great conflict the "way of the war- when affronts to one's honor demanded a re-
pitting Athens and its empire against rior," delineated all as- sponse. From the Middle Ages onward, military
Sparta and the Peloponnesian pects of a samurai's ex- officers would often resolve disputes of honor by
League from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C. istence, from battle to dueling with swords or pistols. Sometimes the
"Thus choosing to die resisting, court. "The sense of protagonists would go to extraordinary lengths;
rather than to live submitting, they honour, implying a two French officers in the Napoleonic era
fled only from dishonour," he in- vivid consciousness of spent 19 years fighting each other in a series of
toned, "but met danger face to face, personal dignity and 17 duels that formed the basis of Joseph Con-
and after one brief moment, while rad's 1907 novella, "The Point of
at the summit of their fortune, es- Honor: A Military Tale," also known
caped, not from their fear, but from as "The Duel.'""
their glory."' In other words, coura- A historian of dueling writes, "The
geous conduct in battle was honor- result was that men of fierce courage
able, and by dying an honorable and high spirit, and also those of
death the Athenian warriors of rude manners, were quick to give and
whom he spoke earned the venera- take offence with fatal consequences;
tion of their fellow citizens. Fortune much of the best blood of Christen-
could be fleeting, but honor and the dom was brutally spilled, many valu-
respect of one's fellow man made a able lives were surrendered, and at
warrior timeless. some periods war itself was scarcely
more destructive than these so-called
Chivalric code contests of honor."" Over time mon-
The medieval era witnessed the archs and governments outlawed the
evolution of the warrior's creed into a Library of Congress photos cruel custom, but dueling continued,
unique social instrument known as most famously taking the life of Al-
Above: what did King Arthur
the Chivalric Code. Chivalry defined exander Hamilton, killed by sitting
look like? Maybe this sculpture
the ethos of the mounted knight, a U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr on
by German artist Peter Vischer
progression in warfare made possible July 11, 1804, over political differenc-
the Elder, ca.1460-1529. Right;
by the introduction of the stirrup and es and allegations of defamation of
this portrait of a samurai dates
heavy coats of armor that made the character in the heat of the 1804 New
mounted warrior the most formidable to about 1877. York gubernatorial election. Both
force on the battlefield, at least until men had been high-ranking officers
the implementation of the longbow and gunpow- worth, could not fail to characterize the samurai, in the Revolutionary War.
der weapons beginning in the 14''' century. By born and bred to value the duties and privileges
the mid-12"'century, chivalry had migrated fi'om of their profession," observes the Japanese phi- West Point
France to other parts of Europe and stimulated losopher Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933)."' Samurai The American military's conception of honor
an elitist concept of the consummate warrior: feared disgrace above all else and would fight to descended from European origins. A late
God-fearing, skilled in mounted combat, coura- the death to maintain their sense of honor. They 18"'-century American military publication ex-
geous when facing the enemy, given to courtly love sought neither fortune nor power, but reputation plicated, "The Captain is to be true to his coun-
in relations with women, fair in dispensing justice, and renown. "Life itself was thought cheap if try, make service his business, true honor his ob-
and true in word and deed.'" In a word, honorable. honour and fame could be attained therewith," ject."™ But what was true honor? The concept
The Arthurian legend and works by medieval Nitobe relates, "hence, whenever a cause pre- underwent significant refinement in oral tradi-
authors such as Chrétien de Troyes and Geoffrey sented itself which was considered dearer than tion over the 19"' and early-20''' centuries. For
of Monmouth allude to the importance of honor life, with utmost serenity and celerity was life example, up through the Civil War, academic
for a knight. In the M* century, the French laid down."'' When events demanded actions cheating was not treated as a violation of the of-
knight Geoffroi de Charny penned a primer, outside the Bushido code, samurai could always ficer's code of honor.^' American military honor
A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry, in which honor employ ninja, who valued honor as well, but op- finally found a home in more durable form after
meant success in combat or, absent that, in the erated within a different set of martial credos,"' World War I at, for instance, the United States
joust and tournaments." Knights further under- those espousing mission accomplishment above Military Academy at West Point (from which I
stood that lasting honor could only be achieved all else. And when honor was compromised, a graduated in 1982 and at which I taught history
by great deeds of force on the battlefield, where samurai warrior could right matters by commit- in the early 1990s).
reputations were earned or destroyed. In refer- ting seppuku, or ritual suicide." In this sense, Moral training was an integral part of West
ring to de Charny's thoughts on chivalry. Univer- there was little difference from the European and Point instruction since its founding in 1802. Such
sity of Rochester medieval historian Richard later American compulsion to duel over insults, edification encompassed a prohibition on dueling
Kaeuper writes, "All will be well if the men who real or imaginary. (See below.) and the consumption of alcohol, and an empha-
bear arms understand the two principal themes sis on integrity in word and deed.^^ Col. Sylvanus
he advances. First: prowess is the essential chi- Gentlemanly officers Thayer, superintendent from 1817 to 1833, con-
valric trait and leads to honor, the highest As military institutions evolved in the early sidered the inculcation of honor essential to West
human good. Second: this prowess is the gift of modern era, from the mid-15* century to the Point's mission. He standardized the instructional

SUMMER 2014 PHI KAPPA PHI fORUM 11


West Point cadets congratulate each other at their graduation in May 2011.
system, underscored discipline, and instuled the
imperative of moral excellence, earning in later
generations the honorary title "Father of the Mili-
tary Academy." In the words of Thayer's biogra-
pher, "Honor would be the foundation required;
Honor would draw all the cadets together as a
Corps; Honor, generated from within the Corps
itself, would be the spirit, guiding the Corps for
all time."'^ Thayer also insisted on compulsory re-
ligious attendance, a requirement that remained
in effect until 1972 when, in Anderson v. R. Laird,
the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, ruled
that the practice violated the Constitutional sepa-
ration of church and state.
A sense of honor formed the bedrock of the
Corps of Cadets, but the honor code itself re-
mained an unwritten set of guidelines largely
passed on by the cadets themselves. This make-
shift system collapsed in the wake of World War I
when the three upper classes were graduated
early to help staff the Army. Thus, lacking peer
instruction about the proper course, the Corps
of Cadets foundered on the shoals of ethical ig-
norance. Earl "Red" Blaik, a cadet at West Point
in the post-war years who would go on to coach
Army's back-to-back national championship
football teams in 1944 and 1945, remembered
this nadir as "gloomy days mixed with hazing, a
cadet suicide, personal grudge fights, and a War
Department investigation. Certainly an air of
melancholy prevailed."^''
Into this difficult situation stepped Douglas
MacArthur, the youngest brigadier general in the
Army and now at age 39 one of the youngest su-
perintendents of the Military Academy.-' Com-
manding his alma mater from 1919 to 1922,
MacArthur put in motion reforms such as the
creation of a cadet honor committee that in 1932
sanctioned an official honor code.^* "A cadet will
12 PHI KAPPA PHI FORUM SUMMER 2014
Mass Communication Spc. ' Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy/defenseimagery.mil
not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do"
became the marching orders and an indelible
part of the West Point ethos. A cheadng scandal
in 1951, in which 90 cadets were expelled (in-
cluding Blaik's son Robert, the starting quarter-
back), made national news in large measure be-
cause the West Point honor code had been in-
grained by then in the American consciousness.
The 1960s and 1970s placed great pressure
on the sense of honor among Army officers,
many of them West Point graduates. As the
body count of enemy killed became the metric
for success in the Vietnam War, some officers
succumbed to the temptation to fudge statistics
to enhance their careers. The cancer ran deep:
The Peers Inquiry into the 1968 My Lai massa-
cre in Vietnam and its cover-up revealed a deep
concern over officer morality, confirming the
statement often attributed to the ancient Greek
dramatist Aeschylus, "In war, truth is the first
casualty" In 1970, U.S. Army Chief of Staff,
Gen. William Westmoreland, commissioned a
study by the Army War College of officer atti-
tudes. Its findings were likewise grim: wide-
spread deviation of ideal values and actual stan-
dards as practiced in the field." The officers sur-
veyed "were frustrated by the pressures of the
system, disheartened by those seniors who sac-
rificed integrity on the altar of personal success,
and impatient with what they perceived as pre-
occupation with insignificant statistics."^* Dis-
mayed by the findings, Westmoreland sup-
pressed the report.
The Military Academy was not immune from
similar deterioration of principles. In 1976, an-
other cheating scandal, this one on a take-home
electrical engineering exam, resulted in the resig-
nation or expulsion of 152 cadets.^' West Point
instituted correctives such as the elimination of
take-home exams, creation of different versions
of exams for different class sections, punish-
ments other than expulsion for some honor of-
fenses, and mandatory honor education for ca-
dets. The Military Academy realized that in-
coming plebes reflected American society, and
vice versa, and West Point had to instill honor-
able ways in them.
Vantage points
Western notions of military honor are hardly
universal. In the waning months of World War II,
nearly 4,000 Japanese pilots, opposed by over-
whelming American combat power and facing
certain defeat, sacrificed themselves in kamikaze
attacks on U.S. Navy warships. Japanese com-
manders saw no other way out of their predica-
ment, as the Bushido code forbade surrender.
Sacrificing oneself for comrades, as soldiers had
done through the ages, was one thing; suicide as
an assigned mission was quite another. The or-
ganizer of the first kamikaze unit, Adm. Takijiro
Onishi, told the young men about to be sent to
their deaths, "The salvation of our country is
now beyond the power of the ministers of state,
the General Staff, and lowly commanders like
myself. It can only come from spirited young
men such as you. Thus, on behalf of your hun-
dred million countrymen, I ask of you this sacri-
fice, and pray for your success. You are already
gods, without earthly desires."" Honor and duty
demanded the ultimate sacrifice of these mod-
ern samurai, even in a hopeless cause. The kami-
kazes were volunteers, but to refuse was, in the
Japanese worldview, an act of cowardice. Simi-
lar motivations exist in today's Islamist suicide
bombers, with the added element of religion to
spur the faithful to paradise.
Warriors, for better or worse, reflect the civili-
zations from which they emerge. Soldiers have
always been expected to be brave and honorable.
The meaning of bravery, however, is perhaps
more clear than the definition of honor, which
has been shaped by changing societal norms and
shifting cultural values. Honorable conduct for
soldiers has been interpreted in many ways over
the eras, from the glorification of violence and
the ferocious protection of reputation to a more
recent accentuation on honesty and adherence
to the laws of war. Yet honor, however ex-
plained, remains central to the ideology of war-
riors and compels them to duty — even when
no one is looking. #
Peter R. Mansoor spent 26 years in the
Army after graduating first in his class from
the United States Miiitary Academy, his
Phi Kappa Phi chapter. He heid command
and staff positions in the U.S. and abroad,
culminating as executive officer to Gen. David
Petraeus during the Iraqi War, and retired as a
colonel. Mansoor's books about war include, most recently.
Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus dr)d the Remaking
of the Iraqi War (Yale University Press, 2013). He is an associate
professor and the Gen. Raymond E. Mason, Jr Chair in Military
History at The Ohio State University. Email him at mansoor 1 ©osu.edu.
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