Like Himmelberger, however, Thomas said ethics was a guiding concern as a soldier. One of the issues that comes up in ethics discussions in class, the cadets said, is unlawful orders. The massacre of at least 500 civilians, many of them women and children, at the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War by American soldiers is a case study, said Thomas.
"There is a lot of looking at the ethical failures of the army at the time, My Lai obviously being an example of what went wrong," he said. "How can we prevent this from ever happening again? What command climate led to that event and what led to [Lieutenant William Calley] thinking that was an OK way to conduct business?
photo: Jay Muhlin
Cadets Liesl Himmelberger and Paul Thomas: ready to serve in a looming war, yet wary of ethical minefields that may await them
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"The biggest lessons we learned in Vietnam were the ethical ones," said Thomas. For instance, one of the questions raised, he said, was this: "Is it OK to push a peasant through a minefield ahead of you because you know he knows the way through?"
Is it? he was asked.
"No, that is very, very not OK. He is a noncombatant, you are putting his life at risk, and you are forcing him to do a military task, which is not his place. Regardless of whether he knows where the mines are, regardless of what his sympathies are, he is a civilian and he is to be protected."
Colonel Forsythe said the cadets' views are reflective of the wider student body at an institution where pupils can now major in philosophy, art, or literature as well as the Point's traditional specialties of engineering and military tactics. "We are not about indoctrinating cadets anymore," said Forsythe. "We are about educating them."
Forsythe was in the West Point class of 1970, right behind writer Lucian K. Truscott IV. The grandson of another hero World War II general, Truscott graduated from West Point and then quickly got himself kicked out of the army for refusing to withdraw an anti-war article he had written for The Village Voice. He later wrote a tell-all novel about the academy called Dress Gray, which was banned at West Point. In the first chapter of that novel, Truscott wrote the words quoted at the start of this article. In the same passage, Truscott added: "They liked to think that war was their reward, the currency they were paid, cadets did."
Forsythe still rolls his eyes a little at mention of Truscott's name. But asked if his students weren't perhaps pleased to have the challenge of a full-scale war in the offing, the colonel answered vehemently, with a conviction that probably would have been lacking in his day at the Point. "No soldier wants to go to battle," he insisted.
