Tag: Honor

Honor

On By thallfpcpLeave a comment

Late in 1997 I got a dream job commanding the Air Force ceremonial unit in Washington, DC. For most of my career I’d served in classified assignments, with no public acclaim. But now I’d be leading the unit with the Air Force Band, Honor Guard, and Chaplains at Arlington National Cemetery, with thousands of public performances, many on national TV. Only the Thunderbirds, the aerial demonstration team, had more public visibility.

Earlier that year, a video had made national news which showed graduates of a Marine training course having their insignia, which had sharp metal prongs, being pounded into their chests. It was a secret hazing ritual among elite units called “blood pinning.” The video was hard to watch; mothers didn’t send their sons to the Marines so this sort of thing would be done to them.

At my first staff meeting, I asked the commanders who worked for me if our units did this sort of thing. “Oh no sir! We would never do that.” So, I was told.

I think it was about a month later when a large color picture appeared in The Washington Post of one of our ceremonial guardsmen in dress uniform, along with the story of how he had been hazed.   

I learned that the Honor Guard hazing ritual was called a “beat down.” Experienced ceremonial guardsman would take turns slugging newbies after their first official ceremony. The guys were tough. Most of them actually liked the ritual and looked forward to it. But that didn’t make it right.

If this was such a great thing, why did it need to be secret?

Why did a unit, whose sole purpose was to guard honor, think it was OK to lie?

Jesus Christ said it plainly: “Let your ‘yes” be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’”

The 8th commandment prohibited “false witness,” but an Old Testament system of jurisprudence had arisen which involved swearing oaths. The more important the issue, the more important the thing you would swear by. But Jesus said no. Integrity isn’t situational.

When you just tell the truth, you never have to worry about keeping your stories straight.

Honor

On By thallfpcpLeave a comment

When I was eighteen and three weeks out of high school, I went to the Air Force Academy. A bedrock of Academy life was the Honor Code: We will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate among us anyone who does.

The Academy spent many hours teaching us about the Honor Code. We had regular honor discussions. A typical question might be: “Cadet Smith is in a store and starts to steal something, but at that moment, a clerk walks by, and Cadet Smith never commits the crime. Is Cadet Smith honorable?”

“No, he’s not honorable,” someone would say. “He intended to steal.” About half of my classmates would agree. But the other half would say, “Cadet Smith is honorable. He never stole anything.”

We were all eighteen and hadn’t yet learned the finer points of diplomacy. Our discussions soon turned to shouting matches. After a few “discussions,” we realized no one’s mind was going to change, so we would sit in stony silence, polarized, when questions of honor came up.

Looking back, I wish I had understood the Gospel. The Gospel is the only worldview that doesn’t divide between right and wrong, good and bad, us and them. 

Jesus was in the home of a Pharisee, a religious conservative, when an uninvited guest, a woman of ill repute, crashed the party. She wet Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.

Everyone knew her scandalous life, but only she knew Jesus’ forgiveness.

And so she wept.

This was the reason for her extravagant act of love, which included anointing Jesus’s feet with expensive perfume.

The Gospel worldview says that every single one of us is more evil than we know, yet, at the same time, we are more loved by God than we dare hope.

Jesus knows us right down to the bottom of our hearts; every dishonorable thought and deed. And, at the same time, he loves us to the heavens.

And he’s already forgiven us. All we need to do is accept it.

Here’s what I wish I knew back then: Only the Gospel worldview allows us to look at those with whom we disagree, those who seem totally different from us, and say, “There is someone who’s been forgiven much…like me.”

My classmates all went on to serve their country with honor. Today, we love and respect each other. When we get together, we hug each other, and sometimes we weep.