My Mind’s Musings

This is the second of the Character Trait articles that I wrote for our base newspaper. (See the first article under Character Training)  Just a reminder that this is written for a broad audience that come from all different religious backgrounds.

This week’s character trait for discussion is courage. This is one of the Navy’s three core values – honor, courage, and commitment. Courage conjures up pictures in our minds of brave men and women facing life threatening situations, no matter what the cost. Perhaps it is the bravery of the men at the battle of the Alamo, who fought for what they believed in even though facing almost certain death. Perhaps scenes from Saving Private Ryan, or other similar movies come to mind, when soldiers bravely faced bullets and shrapnel for their comrades and their country. More recently, we have the example of those passengers aboard Flight 93 who willingly gave their lives to keep an airplane from being used to bomb a Washington D.C. site on September 11, 2001. This type of courage is physical courage – being willing to put yourself physical well being at risk to accomplish a mission.

There is another type of courage, however, that is just as much, if not more important. That courage is moral courage. Without moral courage, the physical courage will probably not be there, either. Moral courage is the having the character to do the right thing even when it is not popular. Hugh Thompson was one of those people. On March 16, 1968, Thompson, a helicopter pilot, stopped the My Lai massacre by putting his helicopter down between the Vietnamese villagers and the U.S. Army soldiers. He confronted the leader of the Army platoon and coaxed civilians out of hiding to be flown to safety. He successfully stopped any further killing. You might think that this should not have taken any courage to stop unlawful killing of civilians, but as a result of his actions, Thompson was hated by many in the Army. For many years, his actions were not applauded, but scorned. It was not until the late 1980’s that attitudes towards him began to change, and the Service Academies started having him come in and speak about military ethics. It was not until 1998 that he and his crew mates were awarded the prestigious Soldier’s Medal by the U.S. Army. Army Major General Michael Ackerman put it best when he said, “It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did… [the three] set the standard for all soldiers to follow.” Moral courage is more than putting your life on the line; it is doing the right thing without worrying about the consequences.

So the question is, how do we build courage? Physical courage, in my opinion cannot be taught. It proceeds from moral courage, therefore, it is simply the actions demonstrating who you are on the inside. Moral courage comes from knowing what you believe and holding unwaveringly to those beliefs. We live in an age where that is not popular. Postmodern philosophy would tell us that there is no truth or right or wrong, and you can believe anything that you want to. The problem is that there is right and wrong, and it takes courage to stand up for what is right. Through our religious traditions, our upbringing, our education, we may come to slightly different beliefs about what is right or wrong; but ultimately there will be beliefs that are truly right and truly wrong. Developing moral courage is developing that belief system to the point that your integrity is so high that when confronted with a situation where it is easier to do the wrong thing, you will still do what is right.

This is the first of the Character Trait articles that I wrote for our base newspaper. (See the first article under Character Training)  Just a reminder that this is written for a broad audience that come from all different religious backgrounds. 

In the last article I wrote, I began a series on character traits that should be developed within ourselves and those in our realm of influence. The first trait that I want to cover is one that is necessary, misunderstood, and difficult for any of us to achieve. It is humility. To begin, though, what is humility? Miriam Webster Dictionary defines it as “the state of being humble.” Not very helpful, but when you go to the definition of humble it states, “not proud or haughty, not arrogant or assertive.” Why is humility necessary, in fact doesn’t it take pride to do our job well and accomplish our mission? The definition of humility does not help us see the necessity of humility. In fact, it probably makes many of us not want it, the way it is defined.

A better definition could be found by searching the religious traditions that teach humility. Whether it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, basically any religious tradition, it will teach its followers to exhibit humility as a virtue. From the Jewish Mishnah, Abot 4.4, “Be of an exceedingly humble spirit, for the end of man is the worm.” From Islam’s Hadith of Bukhari, “Have I not taught you how the inhabitants of Paradise will be all the humble and the weak…?” In Christian and Jewish tradition from Psalm 45:4 God is described as defending those who are humble when it says, ” In your majesty ride forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness; let your right hand display awesome deeds.” Jesus Christ himself says in Matthew 23:12, “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” So if we are encouraged to be people of humility then what will that look like. First of all, it will not mean weakness, and I think that Webster gets the connotation wrong with saying that it is a person that is not assertive. You can be strong, bold, brave, assertive and all those other traits and still be humble. The key is found in the Biblical passage Romans 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.”

The problem that humility corrects in our life is pride. Pride in belonging to a unit, organization, or being part of an accomplishment is normal and desirable; but pride that makes us think that we are better than other people is an attitude that leads to downfall. The pride in unit that makes us stand a little taller as Sailors, Marines, Soldiers or Airmen is beneficial to developing esprit de corps and accomplishing our mission with teamwork and unity, leading to outstanding results. Proverbs 16:18 tells us that “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” This type of pride leads us to think that we do not need anyone else because we are above and better than anyone else. This does not just pertain to people in positions of authority. You could be a Seaman Recruit and still have an attitude of pride, which would make you highly unteachable and unable to see the benefits and knowledge you can gain from those in authority over you. On the other hand, an Admiral who does not understand that his rank does not make him any better a person than those under his command, will be arrogant and abusive in their leadership style. Jesus taught in Matthew 20:26, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” While he is speaking here to his disciples in particular, the principle of humble, servant leadership applies in all situations. The best leader is the one who tries his best to take care of those beneath him and whose subordinates will then do their best to work hard for him, thereby accomplishing the mission.

From boot camp on, I have been taught that the two goals of military leadership were mission accomplishment and troop welfare. If humility is an attribute of the leader, then he or she will do the best they can on the latter, and the ones they lead will respond by enthusiastically supporting the mission to its fulfillment. As always I welcome any input on these articles, and invite you to consider the next trait to be discussed which is courage.