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By Raymond Perry

The Commission on Sexual Harassment at West Point and Annapolis missed a sustaining and critical element of the Service Academy world – it is not just about sex. Annapolis Superintendent Vice Admiral Rodney Rempt's (Above, Photo USN) aim wasn't any better. In his recent letter to alumni supporting the Commission's findings Rempt reinforced the obvious need to immediately address the problems without accepting the responsibility for doing so.

The Commission's Report and the Admiral's letter to alumni, for all their value in implementing corrective actions, take aim at the Midshipmen themselves and miss the single most critical element of service academy culture. Simply put, the senior leaders of the service academies are academy graduates themselves and pass on this culture across decades.

Special commissions serve many purposes for political leaders besides providing a solution to a problem. A commission's primary purpose is to take the pressure off political leaders for immediate action to correct thorny problems. This provides the cover of doing something and reasonable people must then wait for the final product before taking action.

This takes the heat off.

The second purpose is the report itself. Findings are usually something that political leaders can act on. A few reports are nearly useless, while most identify some problems while recommending reasonable, but rarely transformational, corrective action. A select few reports actually get to the heart of the matter and recommend actions that truly transform an organization.

This report, for all of the hard work of the commissioners, falls somewhere in the middle. Primarily this is because the commission's discussion of service academy culture overlooks the central role of key academy leaders in sustaining this culture.

For many, many decades, these senior leaders have been academy graduates. It is as if the academies might somehow become impure if a non-graduate were allowed in a leadership position. Such a policy inevitably reinforces the negative aspects of the culture.

There are rare cases where returning leaders, such as General Douglas MacArthur, set out to fix things and actually did so. The general returned to West Point as Superintendent following the First World War and fundamentally changed the Plebe System to remove abusive and dangerous behavior (see second page of linked article, p.48). Few senior leaders are willing to take such action "against" their alma mater partly because of a vocal and strident "old guard."

The report discusses academy culture as if it springs fully-grown from the Midshipmen and Cadets themselves. This is not true, simply put these young men and women are emulating behavior they observe or have some basis for believing to be acceptable. If they did not believe they could get away with the behavior that precipitated the commission, they would not do it.

In his letter to alumni, Superintendent Rempt adroitly avoids responsibility personally, and corporately for all of his predecessors, and for the frankly criminal behavior of the small fraction of Midshipmen and Cadets that precipitated the Commission. To be sure, much of this occurred prior to his becoming the Superintendent, yet today it is his responsibility. These young men and women, the best and the brightest from our high schools, did not wake up one day and choose to commit such offenses.

Never the less, just as Commander Kevin Mooney had to openly, clearly, and painfully accept responsibility for the USS San Francisco's near loss in January, the Admiral should have clearly and emphatically stated that the buck stopped at his desk. Naval Custom and tradition calls for nothing less.

In military organizations when the boss chooses to correct injustice, emphatically communicates this to his subordinates, and makes it clear that he is checking, these things get fixed. When subordinates choose to ignore such decisions by seniors, careers end suddenly.

Yet despite the Air Force Academy 's travails beginning a decade ago and followed by lesser but quite similar behavior at Annapolis and West Point , there has been little substantial action. There has been much hand waving, flowery talk, and ineffective administrative behavior. Brigadier General Johnny Weida's talk with the Air Force Academy's Cadets, where he waved a "warrior's sword" for dramatic effect, was a colorfully theatrical case in point.

The respective Commandants of Cadets and Midshipmen (L. Photo: USNA) need only have spoken with their charges setting forth the unacceptable behavior, that it was criminal, and that those found to be doing so would be sent packing and prosecuted where appropriate. Less than two minutes is needed.

Then, they had to convey that they were serious. Unfortunately, the leaders of that time did every thing but that. Despite the apparent gravity of his words, the Admiral's recent letter to alumni neatly sidesteps his personal example and his acceptance of responsibility for rooting out criminal behavior within his command.

To be sure, the Naval Academy has implemented some corrective actions where needed, particularly where the sexes are mixed closely. Regardless, the academy's leadership pretends the criminal behavior that precipitated the mess occurred at a state university, not a military academy. Unlike civilian organizations, a military chain of command is far more flexible and able to initiate immediate action enabling fundamental and systemic change in a very short time.

When change is not only necessary but the right thing to do, military organizations are capable of breathtakingly rapid change. Without perceptive leaders, military organizations can take decades to change. In this instance, the fundamentals were recognizable well over a decade ago. Yet today, only administrative actions are in place.

(L: USNA cadets learn as much by what they see and hear as what they are told. Photo: USNA) It is important to place the actions of senior academy officers in context. There is a long standing but unspoken tradition at the service academies. This tradition states that the "academy corpus" (Midshipmen & Cadets, staff, and faculty) has the right to exclude those who "do not fit." Observing the rules, or law, in pushing out those who "do not fit," is not required. Any method is acceptable so long as it does not embarrass the "academy."

The behavior of midshipmen and cadets then comes clearly into focus. In my article, A Failure of Our Ethos, (DefenseWatch, 17 July 2003 ) I describe how such abusive behavior evolves in an institution. This behavior is purely abusive, the sexual aspect, repulsive as it is, is not the central motivation. A fundamental element remains true - that midshipmen and cadets thought they could get away with their offenses.

Worse, because of leadership's unwillingness to act, many academy graduates did get away with criminal acts extending across a decade.

The senior leaders of the service academies are responsible to the American people for providing a fundamentally fair institution that passes on to their charges those elements of lawful and professional combat leadership that will enable ultimate victory in this nation's wars. So far, these admirals and generals have carefully avoided clearly assuming responsibility in their public statements.

Behaviorists call this kind of behavior cognitive dissonance.

Simply: "the walk does not match the talk." Midshipmen and Cadets call it doublespeak!

Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret.) is a DefenseWatch Contributing Editor. He can be reached at cos1stlt@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com. ©2005 DefenseWatch. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.