Prisoner abuse shows lack of character, not poor training

Saturday, May 22, 2004

My son is a 19-year-old Army Reserve MP. He graduated yesterday (May 21) after 18 weeks of training. This is not the best time to be a military police officer, given the world-wide attention focused on Army Reserve MPs as a result of pictures detailing abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

If anyone is more perplexed and outraged than the average American citizen by abusive behavior by MPs, then it is most certainly my son and the members of his newly-minted MP unit.

These men and women are motivated by patriotism and a mix of other emotions, including both apprehension and excitement. But the bottom line is that they are young soldiers training to serve their country. While they're embarrassed and incensed by these latest revelations, they're proud of what they are and what they wish to become.

Our son will be home with us for a time this summer, but later this year, in all likelihood, his unit will be deployed somewhere in the world. The "police actions" in which the United States finds itself in Iraq or Afghanistan, to name only two, require people who are "part police officer-part soldier." That's exactly what an MP is: a military police officer operating, one would reasonably assume, with the highest consciousness of duty, honor and country.

My concern for my son and his fellow MPs leads me to hope the Abu Ghraib abuses are an aberration. I pray that the culprits are a few wildly errant soldiers; people who clearly do not represent the thousands of uniformed Americans serving around the world with deserved distinction. I do not want to believe that inhumane policies were sanctioned by line officers. But we must know the truth. Where were the troops' commanding officers? And in the language of Watergate, "What did they know? And when did they know it?"

Something about our Army's leaders' initial responses troubles me. Admittedly, more training and more personnel are perhaps needed forms of support. Indeed, as an educator, I can be depended upon to promote the merits of more training. But these examples of human depravity are not about more training. They're about character.

Teddy Roosevelt said that to educate a man without morals is to educate a menace to society. Well-educated criminals exist. So do well-educated terrorists. More training or preparedness will not solve all our problems.

If America's moral credibility was at stake before, it most assuredly is teetering now, even if it is true that a few soldiers do not an Army -- or a country -- make. How America handles perpetrators of sexually-charged humiliation and torture will say a great deal about who we are at the heart of our culture.

Character is everyone's business. It's about one soldier saying, "This is not right." It's about the American people bucking our recent peace time trends and using categorical moral statements like "evil" or "wrong," and then holding accountable those who are responsible for a form of war crime.

As a parent I'm not naive. I know what MPs must sometimes do in defense of freedom. But I also know that the best service my son can give his country is to wear his uniform honorably. We should expect no less of his colleagues and his leaders, for to paraphrase Alexis de Tocqueville, America will remain great as America remains good.

Rex M. Rogers is president of Cornerstone University. He and his wife, Sarah, live in Alto and have four children; the youngest is Army Reservist Adam Rogers.