Word: honores
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What Berry has done to cope with the scandal and get at its causes is take control of the honor code away from the cadets. Berry gave Colonel Hal B. Rhyne, deputy commandant, a new full-time job: handling honor code questions and issues. He then replaced the cadets' honor committees with an "internal review panel" that will conduct the initial hearings in cases of alleged violations. The panel is made up of three field-grade officers (major and above) and two cadets who next year will be first classmen (seniors). Still not satisfied, Berry created four separate subcommittees...
What drives Berry to get at the root of the problem is his firm conviction that the honor code is the "archstone" of West Point's stern motto: Duty, Honor, Country. Says he: "I do not think the code is anachronistic. Integrity is essential in the development of leader-soldiers." Indeed, Berry and many other high-ranking officers, including non-West Pointers, agree that the honor code serves an absolutely irreplaceable function, as do the more lenient codes at Annapolis and the Air Force Academy. All three academies accomplish their main purpose: they produce well-trained and dedicated officers...
With impressive unanimity, graduates of the three academies agree that the honor codes helped greatly to prepare them for a life in the military. Air Force Colonel Bradley P. Hosmer, top man in the class of 1959 at the Air Force Academy, goes one step further: "The honor code was the most important influence on my life, period. It affects your standards of self, my expectations, and even how I raise my kids." In all three services, academy graduates emphasize the importance of being able to trust the word of a fellow officer...
...honor code that has become so important to West Point -and the U.S. Army-began under Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, superintendent from 1817 to 1833. A Dartmouth man with a backbone of iron, Thayer changed West Point from a humdrum school for the sons of wealthy families into a first-class engineering institution. After studying European military systems, he also imposed on the cadets a kind of Prussian discipline that lingers today. Thayer had strict rules against lying and stealing, and what was called "irregular or immoral practices...
Shortly before the turn of the century, cadets set up their own vigilance committee and conducted covert "trials" of those who breached the code. When he was superintendent in 1922, Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur created the honor system, with an official board of review composed of cadets...