Don't Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James Salter(62)
Self-reported violations are treated no differently from others. Nor does the seriousness of the offense matter. It is a code of iron. Fortunately it makes some exception for social situations or cadets would be monsters of candor and a foolish “I love you” could wreck a career.
Despite these almost theological intricacies, Goodpaster feels that the code is a minimum. Beyond it he sees larger questions of virtue. Of the men who were once cadets it will be asked, does he treat people with fairness, does he meet a challenge with courage, does he stand up to be counted?
Honor is the battle line along which West Point has chosen to make its stand. It is like the single square on a chessboard toward which all pieces are directed.
Joe Franklin, the brigadier general who as commandant is responsible for the military training of cadets and in charge of much of their life, says, “I feel the country looks at West Point as the honor of society. If you can’t maintain it here, you’re doomed.”
There have been some recent changes in the honor system. Trials are now open and conducted with the participation of members of the corps at large—two from each class including plebes—as well as members of the committee. There is a legal officer who serves as a kind of magistrate, but the proceedings are essentially between cadets. If the finding is guilty, normally there is still only one punishment: dismissal. The superintendent, however, can modify the sentence.
“There are people who support the honor system strongly and there are those who don’t. I’m one of the latter,” a female cadet says. She is a first classman and highly regarded. “There’s too much witch-hunting.”
“I believe in the honor code,” another says, “but I have some trouble with the system.”
“Sometimes I think they carry it a little bit too far,” another first classman, a male, says.
The honor captain is James Coe, six feet five, good-looking, with corn-colored hair and a slight cast in one eye, a basketball player from Minnesota who became disillusioned with the game and gave it up, never touched a ball again.
“I’d be the first to admit I’m a very naive young man,” he says, “but I feel the biggest thing we try to do is teach an honor ethic—a personal ethic that goes beyond the code. On an individual level,” he admits, “I think there is some discretion on the part of both reporting cadets and members of a full honor board.”
Coe would like to see a return to a simpler concept. “One thing I’d like to do,” he reflects, “is reduce the size of the corps. You can hide in the corps now. In the old days you could concentrate on people.”
There was a time when the Army was small and a regular officer was above politics and beyond deceit, without exception or qualification. The question today is: should West Point worship an integrity that is greater than the nation’s, and how much greater should this integrity be? There is an obvious danger when colonels and generals see themselves as sole guardians against corruption. On the other hand, a lack of honor among officers would be equally frightening—we saw the discolored edge of it in Vietnam.
“I don’t say you don’t have to compromise in the Army,” a captain from the class of ’69 says, “but here it should be different.”
A former first captain and Rhodes scholar adds, “We haven’t solved honor problems yet.”
The chapel still dominates the gray granite buildings like a cathedral in a European city, but the idea that held everything firm is altered, the idea that brought a single, uniform body of young men together not only on Sunday mornings but also in daily meals, parades, and view of life. The new corps has a different identity, multiracial and bisexual, and in it are the hidden stresses found in a solid but amalgamate mass.
This May for the first time there will be women in the graduating class. As second lieutenants they will face problems nearly as great as any they have overcome. They are certain to be watched closely by everyone in the Army. Those who are marrying—about half, and with few exceptions they are marrying classmates or recent graduates—are not assured of assignments with their husbands, although the Army will make every effort to do this. And further along there are the difficulties of raising children in a house where both parents are full-time soldiers.
The women in the class of ’80 entered four summers ago. Some of them may have known what they were getting into, but even these probably had an imperfect idea. Beast Barracks, the first two months of cadet life, is a period of intense physical and psychological stress and a rite of passage. There is shouting, heat, formation running, too much to be done in too little time, a nightmare of anxiety come to life. On a scale of stress from 0 to 100, where a change in residence is 20, marriage 50, and death of a spouse 100, Beast Barracks is estimated to be 300. There were women who missed their periods until November. Some, like women in concentration camps, missed them for a year.
In the spirit of absolute egalitarianism, there were, apart from some minor differences in physical training—women did not take boxing and wrestling, for example—no concessions. The women wore the same uniforms, ate the same food, and lived under the same regimen as the men.
The biggest problem was the running. Women who dropped out were looked down upon by the males. Jim Coe recalls, “I said, what are they here for? There was a woman in my squad who epitomized why women shouldn’t be here. She didn’t seem to try, didn’t put out, didn’t care about the squad.”