CHAPLAIN'S CORNER

By Lt. Michael Spoke, Command Chaplain

Honor 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?

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.

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

of trash. It’s Foreign-Object-Debris, so you have a direct order to pick it up. It is more than expected that you will pick it up, it’s demanded. But if you were walking near The Anchor and saw a piece of trash, would you pick it up? There is no base instruction ordering you to pick it up. How would your values guide you? What is honorable in this situation?

To be considered honorable is an achievement. It means you have consistently chosen to act in a trustworthy way. You are committed to behaving in an upstanding manner in all situations, regardless of whether those actions are supervised or ultimately recognized by others. If integrity is “what you do when no one is looking,” then honor is knowing that what you choose to do will be ethical.

You have heard it before many times (probably at quarters or safety standdowns) that you are a Sailor 24/7, not just during the working hours. The value of honor compels us to act responsibly in all situations and environments, to fulfill our obligations as moral humans, to hold ourselves and others accountable for every action. Honor is an identity. You either are, or you are not. Your choice impacts everyone around you.

We often think of the impact of honor only when someone has behaved dishonorably. Their actions have caused harm, or their actions have broken trust within a community. But the effects of honor are not limited to the consequences of failing to behave honorably. Admiral Arleigh Burke, our longest serving Chief of Naval Operations, once said this, “The integrity of a society or a group is approximately equal to the lowest common denominator of its people. When the standards are lowered for an individual, the standards of the group or society to which the individual belongs are lowered. Sometimes standards are raised in groups, but more frequently there is a gradual disintegration of standards.” Honor sets the tone for your society around you. What you excuse in yourself, you excuse for the group. What you model for others, sets the precedent for the future.

Are we honorable? Maybe the honest answer for us today is “No, I am not honorable... at least not in all areas of my life.”

Here is the good news: Honor is built. While failures set us back and force us to work harder to regain the trust and respect of our shipmates and friends, for better or worse, honor is not a static characteristic. You can rebuild it. In the same way I can’t expect to go to the gym and bench 225 pounds if I haven’t put in the time, we can exercise our resolve to do what is right. We need to make the right choices over and over again in order to build that muscle.

Being honorable is a continual, daily choice. It is the product of millions of little choices, and maybe some big ones, that reveal our actual character. Be quick to admit failings and mistakes, we all make them, but even more so be resolved to build a better, more honorable you.