Pentagon vexed by inability to solve ethics lapses; Politico, 2/10/14

Philip Ewing, Politico; Pentagon vexed by inability to solve ethics lapses:

"“I don’t think there is one simple answer to the issue of ethics, values, a lapse in some of those areas that we do know about,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters the other day at the Pentagon. “That’s why we’re taking a hard look at this.”...

So when Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert was asked last week why he thought a cadre of 30 senior nuclear power instructors in Charleston, S.C., might risk their jobs by potentially cheating on their exam, he shook his head.

“If I knew that answer, I would be doing all kind of things within the Navy,” Greenert said. He vowed that this investigation would go as deep or wide as necessary to keep it from happening again. “We will be very introspective on this.”...

According to documents described at the time by The Associated Press, the anonymous sailor who complained about the Memphis’s cheating did so because he thought it was unfair that he’d been singled out for punishment when it was so commonplace among the crew. He argued that his reprimand was comparable to being caught driving at 60 miles per hour in a 55 zone and losing his license for life, while all the other drivers kept on speeding.

The head of the Navy’s submarine force, then-Vice Adm. John Richardson, cited the Memphis case at the time as an example of why the fleet depends on integrity."