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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael M who wrote (58392)	10/11/1999 1:26:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Your defiant display of loyalty is touching but I'll wager that you missed the point. I was not generically attacking military tradition because of its emphasis on loyalty. I was not attacking military tradition in any way. The USMC - or any military organization with a proud tradition - places very high value on loyalty. Loyalty and valor (to a lesser extent - skill with modern weapons) are the two essential ingredients in running an effective fighting force. But here's my point - while the USMC correctly places very high value on loyalty - it does not place the highest value on that quality. I believe and hope that the top slot is reserved for HONOR - an individual's sense of right and wrong that tempers loyalty. "A few good men" (Jack Nicholson?) was all about the fine line between great loyalty (to a corrupt commander) and loss of honor (before the ideals embodied in flag and country). The hierarchy of loyalty was explicit: "Unit, Corps, God, country". There was a really stupid movie with Bruce Willis - "Boiling Point" I think. I forgot the whole movie except for the lead character's motto - "Loyalty before all else - except honor". I made that one of my own "words to live by". So get this straight. I am not attacking loyalty. What I am attacking is anyone, anywhere who would subordinate honor - the individual's moral compass - to loyalty to another person. (Like Hitler or Stalin.) And that is what the motto on the SS dagger was all about - put loyalty first; let someone else assume ALL responsibility for right and wrong. And that is dishonorable in the least and arrestingly DANGEROUS in the worst. And FYI I am not a Motley Fool.