The Army Ethicists Who Teach Soldiers Right From Wrong

In the movies, soldiers are depicted as order-following enforcers. The reality isn’t quite so black and white. Major Jared Vineyard is an Army chaplain who teaches military ethics to soldiers, helping them to distinguish between right and wrong and “look at missions through the lens of values; exercising a sense of fairness, respect, and honor toward opposing forces.” This isn’t a side of the military that gets a lot of attention, but as Vineyard suggests, “the ability to do good is probably higher in the Army than in any other profession.”

Today there are 17 chaplains and two world religion instructors who hold the responsibility to train members of the Army in ethics. The role overlaps deeply with religion, but the ideas call upon universal human values. Don’t kill prisoners. Treat the enemy humanely. Refuse an attack that has no military necessity. For soldiers, as well as for the rest of us, the idea is to teach them how to be a moral person and to think for themselves. I can’t imagine two concepts more worth teaching or learning, whether you are in the military or not.