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Conscience and the Military Oath

By CARDINAL JOHN J. O'CONNOR

Mr. Joe Zwilling is the rather well-known, ever astute and inevitably stalwart director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York. Apparently my July 29 "Viewpoint" column on Lt. Ryan Berry of the United States Air Force has kept Joe's phone busy. He tells me, for example, that a reporter read him an alleged statement of New York City's National Organization for Women, accusing me of condoning sexism, and expressing the same attitudes used by those who in the past had condoned racism and sexual violence against women. Wow! I wonder how, and wonder even further if the NOW representative is referring to my column or to what was reported about my column. I sincerely plead innocent of the charges.

Again, Mr. Zwilling tells me of the TV reporter who upbraided me through him and concluded that she didn't think I should get into the Lt. Berry story. In the same conversation she told Joe she hadn't read my column on Lt. Berry; only a newspaper account.

Well! "Them's the breaks." Sometimes my writing is understood; sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's not clear; sometimes it's not read.

Why, actually, did I publicly praise Lt. Ryan Berry in my column for his moral integrity and fidelity to Catholic teaching? For refusing to share close quarters in a missile compartment with a woman? Not the point. Because of my male chauvinism and discrimination against women? I honestly doubt that I'm either a male chauvinist or a discriminator. Were Lt. Berry a woman who objected to sharing such quarters with a man, on grounds of moral integrity and fidelity to Church teaching, she would have my full support.

My interest is not in the closeness of quarters of men and women, as such. That's a question the military has been wrestling with, together with various other questions about men and women in the armed forces, for at least the past 20 years.

So what is my concern? That the integrity of conscience never be demeaned, dismissed, punished or even unappreciated in the armed forces of the United States. Without it we have nothing.

A ranking Air Force officer is quoted as saying "the compelling needs of the unit such as good order and discipline which are essential to mission accomplishment must take precedence in the military." I find such a statement exceedingly dangerous unless very carefully qualified. I would shudder for our country and certainly for our armed forces if "good order and discipline," even when "essential to mission accomplishment," must take precedence in the military over moral integrity or a higher order and purpose. With profound respect, I could see such an approach as purely Faustian, if not Nietzschean. Indeed, Nietzsche has Zarathustra claim: "Lo, I teach you the Superman! The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!"

There are wartime missions, of course, in which split-second obedience and response to orders, or even almost instinctive reactions may be absolutely imperative and morally justifiable.

But in the Air Force case at hand, it would appear that there is more than ample opportunity long in advance of potential combat situations for individuals to have examined their consciences, and to have done whatever consulting they believe to be necessary. In the situation apparently involving Lt. Berry, it is difficult to find that one is turning his back, in an emergency situation, on the execution of either a wartime mission or a mission involving the security of the United States. A military officer is simply saying in circumstances in which there is all the time in the world to look rationally and objectively at the situation, "It is against my conscience to serve in this set of circumstances." He is not thus, here and now, jeopardizing national security. He is simply proposing that if a restructuring of duties is required for preservation of conscience, that such a restructuring be effected. It is difficult for me to see how, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, "the compelling needs of the unit, such as good order and discipline...are essential to mission accomplishment" and "must take precedence" in such a case.

Following Vietnam, I wrote a book, "A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam." I wrote sincerely, believing in what I was writing. I generally supported our being in Vietnam. The book was hailed by a number of senior military, who were taking a public relations beating in a country becoming disillusioned with the conflict. I wrote what I thought I had seen during my days in Vietnam, which were neither very extensive nor lived during the later and much worse periods of the war. I have since suggested publicly that, at least in some ways, it was a bad book, or at any rate not a very good book. But at no time in Vietnam did I personally observe men behaving as automatons, or simply swallowing a "party line."

For the most part, they were ordinary combat troops, not at all anxious to be where they were, but trying to do their best and get home alive. With the exception of the highly publicized, but in my personal experience relatively uncommon brutalities, these were men who followed their consciences. I could write of them with integrity for that reason. I have always believed that about our other wars and conflicts, as well. We depended on the conscience of our fighting forces. I never want to see those consciences dulled, even in the height of battle. I could understand it, when I saw men bloodied and having lost comrades for the first time, becoming bitterly and personally angry at the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese. But by and large, our fighting forces in Vietnam did not believe, in conscience, that they, in return, could rape, pillage, plunder or kill at will. It wasn't a Geneva Convention or a Military Code of Conduct that guided them, but their own personal moral beliefs.

As Americans, we have never really subscribed wholeheartedly to "My country right or wrong, but right or wrong my country." History is filled with too many brutalizations of men at war under battles of self-justifying nationalism.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very specific in its teaching about the well-informed and well-ordered conscience, as was the Second Vatican Council.

For example:

"Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment...For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God...His conscience is man's secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths." (VAT II, 6516)

"Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. 'He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.' [1782]

"Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings." [1783]

For 27 years in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, no--no commanding officer ever even remotely suggested that I encourage any man or woman in the armed forces to violate his or her conscience. Never did a single commanding officer ever even remotely suggest to me what I should preach or not preach, even in the heart of Vietnam. I have always been proud of that, I have always believed that it has been the saving grace of the armed forces of the United States, even if some have failed to pay it full tribute.

I am quite sensitive to the demands of equality, on the one hand, and "political correctness," on the other. I pray fervently and always that the armed forces dedicate themselves ever more fervently to full equality. I pray with equal fervor that the same armed forces never lose their integrity in exchange for "political correctness."

I can no more determine Lt. Berry's conscience than can his commanding general. Nor can I determine whether this woman or that man is an occasion of temptation or sin in a given set of circumstances. Nor am I interested in trying to do either. My interest is in respect for the human conscience. When I took an oath of office as a military officer, I pledged, "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic...so help me God." Every military officer takes that same oath. What guarantees fidelity to his or her oath but conscience? Can we believe that a military officer will not lie or cheat or steal or betray his or her country if conscience is meaningless? Does any experienced member of the armed forces believe for a moment that good order and discipline and mission accomplishment in the final analysis depend on military regulations alone, without regard to the integrity of the individual charged with the grave responsibilities of office?

Were I once again to dress in military uniform, I suspect I would remember precisely where to position the ribbons, how to carry the gloves, when to salute the quarterdeck of a Navy vessel to ask permission to come aboard. I suspect that I would feel instantly at home once again in a pitching, tossing ship at sea, in a hole in the ground with the United States Marines. I suspect that I would hardly be able to guess that I had been out of uniform for more than 20 years, unless, of course, a commanding officer told me, "Here is your mission; put your conscience in neutral." Then I would know that I had lost the armed forces that I had loved and served for so long.

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