NYTimes | Along with a steady diet of books on
leadership and management, the reading list at military “charm schools”
that groom officers for ascending to general or admiral includes an
essay, “The Bathsheba Syndrome: The Ethical Failure of Successful
Leaders,” that recalls the moral failure of the Old Testament’s King
David, who ordered a soldier on a mission of certain death — solely for
the chance to take his wife, Bathsheba.
The not-so-subtle message: Be careful out there, and act better.
Despite the warnings, a worrisomely large number of senior officers have
been investigated and even fired for poor judgment, malfeasance and
sexual improprieties or sexual violence — and that is just in the last
year.
Gen. William Ward of the Army, known as Kip, the first officer to open
the new Africa Command, came under scrutiny for allegations of misusing
tens of thousands of government dollars for travel and lodging.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, a former deputy commander of the 82nd
Airborne Division in Afghanistan, is confronting the military equivalent
of a grand jury to decide whether he should stand trial for adultery, sexual misconduct and forcible sodomy, stemming from relationships with five women.
James H. Johnson III, a former commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade,
was expelled from the Army, fined and reduced in rank to lieutenant
colonel from colonel after being convicted of bigamy and fraud stemming from an improper relationship with an Iraqi woman and business dealings with her family.
The Air Force is struggling to recover from a scandal
at its basic training center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where
six male instructors were charged with crimes including rape and
adultery after female recruits told of sexual harassment and sexual
assault.
In the Navy, Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette was relieved of command
of the Stennis aircraft carrier strike group — remarkably while the
task force was deployed in the Middle East. Officials said that the move
was ordered after “inappropriate leadership judgment.” No other details
were given.
While there is no evidence that David H. Petraeus
had an extramarital affair while serving as one of the nation’s most
celebrated generals, his resignation last week as director of the Central Intelligence Agency
— a job President Obama said he could take only if he left the Army —
was the latest sobering reminder of the kind of inappropriate behavior
that has cast a shadow over the military’s highest ranks.
The episodes have prompted concern that something may be broken, or at
least fractured, across the military’s culture of leadership. Some
wonder whether its top officers have forgotten the lessons of Bathsheba:
The crown of command should not be worn with arrogance, and while rank
has its privileges, remember that infallibility and entitlement are not
among them.
