A REEXAMINATION OF ETHICS TRAINING AND EDUCATION FOR ENLISTED MARINES

The Marine Corps is implementing many new capabilities and changing its force design to meet future challenges. One overlooked challenge that enlisted Marines will face in the future operating environment is ethical decision-making. Enlisted Marines make up the bulk of the Marine Corps, and evidence shows they are the most likely to engage in unethical behavior. So to prevent the next Haditha massacre or Taliban urination incident, they need to be more consistently trained and educated in ethics. The current ethics training and education regimen that enlisted Marines undergo is missing essential elements. After analyzing the current ethics training and education regimen for enlisted Marines, I conclude that a more effective ethics training and education regimen should include mandatory unit-level implementation, education that incorporates behavioral ethics, and training that incorporates ethical decision-making with regular reminders of one’s moral fiber. The desired outcomes are that rules are followed and character is developed through habituation, that Marines gain understanding of why people make good and bad ethical decisions, and that Marines experience dissonance and develop ethically sound action scripts. Adversaries can globally broadcast the Marine Corps' ethical failures and create strategic implications to a degree that has never been seen. There is no more critical time than now for the Marine Corps to address this important gap.Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited