ABSTRACT
Recent years have witnessed an undeniable escalation of concern regarding the status and effectiveness of an ethics culture in the contemporary U.S. military. To that end, this entry provides a brief historical overview, with an assertion and supporting analysis of specific incidents contending that it was conduct during the Vietnam War per se, combined with widespread civil unrest, and illuminated by daily media portrayals that together produced a perfect storm of ethical scrutiny and subsequent criticism that not only has endured but continues to intensify. Years of demanding operational tempo, never-ending conflicts resulting in repeated deployments, and the impact of force reductions place great pressures on maintaining the proper military ethic as suggested by concerns even from within. Despite America's national pride in its military forces, and public support that was certainly lacking during the Vietnam Conflict, more recent events, such as the alleged prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, unacceptable actions in Afghanistan, and the nagging problem of sexual harassment and misconduct, even by senior officers, once again raise questions about how to build and maintain a strong ethical culture in the military. No matter how undesirable such events and behaviors may be, they appear to pale in comparison to a number of events that occurred during and after the Vietnam War, making an analytical return to that period not only useful in generating crucial lessons to be learned, but lessons to be heeded as well.
