Peers Policing Peers?
Book Review
The US Air Force Academy has had another cheating scandal. So far eighteen cadets have lost their chance at an outstanding free education and the opportunity to be a commissioned officer. Someone was passing around answers to a test and a bunch of cadets failed to follow their “Honor Code” that prohibits them for cheating. Besides cheating, the “code” does not allow you to lie, steal or tolerate others who might engage in these prohibited actions.
My big Air Force hates cheating scandals because it usually means the loss of multiple numbers of cadets. The Air Force has a very rigid process for applying and getting accepted into their Academy, but besides being rigid, it is expensive. The goal is not to give smart kids a free education, the goal is to create a pool of qualified officers who will fill positions in the active duty Air Force. To be the future leaders and yes, the big “carrot” to be pilots. The cost of taking a young high school graduate off the civilian streets and feeding, housing, clothing, providing for medical needs and four years of education is $282,562. Once they start the process of bringing that cadet into the Academy they want a successful new officer to appear at the other end. A violation of the “Honor Code” can permanently remove a cadet from that process and all government monies that were spent are lost.
I just finished the book “The Last Blue Mile” by Kim Ponders (www.harpercollins.com). It is a fictional story about a first year female cadet at the Air Force Academy. First year cadets are under constant pressure and scrutiny 24 hours a day. The chance to screw up is ever present, but after reading the book you get the impression that the cadets create most of their own problems. Cheating seems to be the big media problem that the Air Force struggles with, but the issue I see that is of greater concern is the “tolerating” of other cadets who break the “Honor Code.” We live in a society that does not like “rats,” people who turn other people in for violations of the “rules.”
In the hip-hop community it is projected that you never “snitch” on anyone.One minute an upper class cadet is “dogging” a lower classman for some extremely minor violation and then later they are all downtown illegally drinking and acting very un-cadet like. There was a sexual assault that takes place in the book. However when you analyze the situation you find both the male and female cadets involved had blatantly violated multiple Academy rules and Articles of the Uniform Codes of Military Justice prior to the assault happening. Not violating any one of the rules would have prevented the assault victim from being in such a vulnerable situation. I know, don’t blame the victim, but these cadets both male and female would make bad decisions and then compound their problems by making more bad decisions.
The author is not an Academy graduate but she spent a lot of time on the campus interviewing cadets and staff trying to understand how this military education process works. Kim Powers is also Major Powers, USAF Reserve. I spoke to some Air Force officers I know who are Academy graduates and whom had returned to be instructors later in their military career. I got the impression they were not overly fond of the current way the “Honor Code” is being enforced by the Cadet Honor Committee who review a case and decide guilt. If you are a cadet maintaining an illegal off-base apartment, where you regularly hold underage drinking and unauthorized activity parties, how will you vote to discipline another cadet who comes before you at the Honor Committee?
Remember you do not tolerate those who screw up, but you have brought with you from your civilian world the “no snitching” rule. Staff members portrayed in the book, as well as the “real” staff members I interviewed complained about the issue of having a cadet dead to rights on a violation that should have gotten him/her booted out to the Academy and they are allowed to beat the system. Worse yet senior leadership is too afraid of the media attention and turn an official blind eye. If you are thinking about attending a military academy or have a child headed there, read the book. Academies provide great educations and are solid institutions, they do however have their negative issues. The book is fiction, but it makes a point.
10 May 2007
Major Van Harl USAF Ret.
