Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 82

(Photo by Sgt. Terysa King, U.S. Army Africa PAO)

Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Jason Duckworth, director of clinical supervision of the Family Life Chaplain Training Center at Fort Hood, Texas, works
through a practical exercise 4 March 2014 with a Malawi Defense Force chaplain assistant.

Many times, they prefer victory or their own survival, or they are overcome by emotions such as revenge
or grief. Something in their mind turns off their
conscience. Bandura describes disengagement of the
moral self-regulatory system as a psychological maneuver designed to circumvent the conscience. According
to Bandura, when the conscience is working properly, people engage their personal standards by using
self-sanctions, self-reflection, and proactive measures.60
These measures can prevent some of the catastrophic
behavior described in this essay.61 Valuing one’s own

life, success, or anything else over one’s beliefs of what is
right disengages the conscience.
Soldiers need to engage in ethical thought well
before they face ethical dilemmas in the fog of war.
Jus in bello provides the subject matter and discussion
parameters. If the Army can get soldiers to think about
and understand the concepts of just war—especially
justice in waging war—it can make the mind fit for battle. With the mind prepared, body and soul will follow.
Soldiers will be able to resist the devastation war can
impose on themselves and on others.

Chaplain (Maj.) Sean Wead, U.S. Army, is an assistant professor of ethics at the U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College. He holds master’s degrees in divinity and theology and a doctorate in ministry with an emphasis in ethics from Virginia Theological Seminary. Wead is a former infantry soldier and metropolitan police officer,
with combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Notes
1. Retired 1st Sgt. Alan Vivyan (57th Transportation Company, 548th Corps Support Battalion, U.S. Army), in discussion with
the author, October 2006, Fort Drum, NY.
2. Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson, Lone Survivor: The
Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of
SEAL Team 10 (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007).
80

3. Name withheld by mutual agreement (U.S. Army soldier)
in discussion with author, December 2007, Forward Operating
Base Warrior, Kirkuk, Iraq.
4. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Anatole Rapoport ed., J.J.
Graham trans. (Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1968), 140.
5. Robert S. McNamara, quoted from Robert S. McNamara
March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW