CHAPLAIN'S CORNER By Lt. Michael Spoke, Command Chaplain
Graphic by Joel Diller, Public Affairs
So let’s take a moment and dive in. What is honor? Honor is a driving force that propels us to behave in an ethical manner.
H
onor is the first of our Navy core values. It is meant to be a part of our identity. While I think many of us have a general idea of what the word means, how many of us have stopped to really consider what it takes to be a person of honor or how to work to become a person of honor? How many of us have stopped to really consider why honor matters? Page 42
This immediately leads us to a very big question: Do we know what ethical behavior is? Is it simply avoiding what is bad (not breaking the law)? Aristotle said, “One studies ethics not merely to know what is good, but to be a better person.” Honor, therefore, is not just about what you should or should not do because of orders, laws or restrictions. It is doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Pursuing honor means we are working hard to be a certain kind of person – one who is actively seeking to do what is good. It goes hand-in-hand with integrity and trustworthiness. Let me put it this way. You work on the flight line and you see a piece
