Ethics Worldview

A person's worldview is shaped in many ways starting from birth. The values held by his family, friends and community are impressed upon him during the first years of his life, and form the basis by which he interacts with the world and through which he understands his experiences. While many people remain truest to the ethics developed in childhood, and only develop complexity in their ethical standards as they age, others choose to stay true to the values that call to them most clearly and build up their values around a new pattern of beliefs. My values were rooted in my family of birth and developed through the influence of my friends and community, but they crystalized during the nearly two decades I spent serving in the U. S. Marine Corps. Among my core values are the Marine Corp ethical goals of honor, courage and commitment, and the basic values of service, hard work, and leadership.

Service is a value that I believe in deeply. As a young man, I choose not to follow my parents in building their business. My parents had a successful business and I could easily have chosen to devote my life to helping grow and expand that business. My parents did a lot for their business, even going so far as to leave the Lutheran Church for the Presbyterian Church because the Presbyterian Church was more socially advantageous, and because membership there would help my father continue to build his business. However, when I entered adulthood, I realized that the family business wasn't for me. I rejected the idea of following in the family footsteps and joined the Marines instead. I did not want to build my life around doing whatever was necessary to become a more successful businessman, but instead felt called upon to commit myself to a greater cause. In the Marines, I spent 19 years serving my country. Rejecting my parents' goals of business success and wealth, I took on the identity--and pay--of a soldier. Like most soldiers, I gave my job more than a few hours a week. I often lived my job day and night, and risked a great deal for it. As a Marine, I lived to serve my country as well as my fellow Marines. While I had several opportunities to leave the service, I opted to continue as a service member for nearly two decades.

My 19 years in the Marines showcases another of my core ethical values: commitment. A soldier can't be half-hearted about his job. Lives depend on his making and keeping a commitment to do the best that he can when engaged in his work. Whether his job is driving a truck, fighting on the front lines, or sitting at a recruiter's desk, each Marine must do his best and fulfill the commitment he made when he signed his service papers. Once you've become a member of the military, backing out isn't an option, and every service member must do his best to live up to high expectations. He must become a trusted member of a team, an expert in his field, and he must go wherever he is sent to do whatever job he is assigned to complete. I might have sympathy for people who make commitments they find that they can't keep, but I don't have a great deal of respect for failing to keep a commitment that's already been made for any but the most desperate of reasons. I consider keeping commitments, even small ones, as a matter of integrity and a sign of trustworthiness.

I believe that the ability to keep a commitment is also a sign as to whether a person is basically honorable. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an honorable person as an individual who is "characterized by integrity" and "guided by a high sense of honor and duty." (Merriam-Webster, 2011). Understanding honor and developing as an honorable person are core values of the Marine Corps, and as a Marine with a long service history, I personally value honor very highly. During my two decades in the Marines, I was challenged by peers and mentors to become an honorable person. I showed my sense of honor through actions such as keeping my commitments, staying true to my word, and by always doing my best to be someone that other soldiers could trust and rely upon in any situation.

I found these three core values to be challenged when I left the Marines after 19 years to work at a private company that supported defense contracts. My new position in the private sector gave me a viewpoint into the inner workings of government that I hadn't touched as a service member. Where I valued honor, commitment, and service, the business managers and the government employees and officials they struck deals with often seemed to lack these three critical ethical values. Service was valued below profit, commitment less than making a show, and honor could not rise above the need to work a deal by any necessary means. I hadn't expected a private business to be the military, but I had expected that a business that recruited former members of the military would better embody the ideals that are often ingrained into soldiers in all branches of the military. I was repulsed by the private environment that I worked in; far from being a job that my life as a Marine could lead me to enjoy, I found that my work with private defense