MCB QUANTICO, Va. (Jan. 3) -- Retired Gen. Peter Pace still remembers the Marines who were killed in battle under his command in Vietnam, and at Reasoner Hall on Jan. 23, he began rattling off their names and ranks for the students of Fox Co. at The Basic School. 


Retired Gen. Peter Pace addresses the lieutenants of
Fox Co. at Reasoner Hall, days before they graduate
from The Basic School. Photographer: Mike DiCicco

Rather than live racked by guilt over those deaths, Pace said, he let those men provide him with a moral “crutch” for the rest of his life. “I made a deal with myself that I would live my life in a way that would respect their sacrifice,” he told the officers, who would graduate days later.

As a lieutenant in the battlefield, which many members of Fox Co. will soon become, Pace said it’s easier to do the dangerous work oneself than to delegate it to others knowing that they could be injured or killed. However, he warned against giving in to this temptation.

“Taking care of your Marines includes not getting yourself killed,” he said, adding that Marines wanted their commanders to lead, not do the work of a lance corporal. “If you get yourself killed, you have robbed your unit of a leader.”

Pace, who went on to eventually serve as commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command and as the first Marine to hold the positions of vice chairman and then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is one of three outside general officers who speak to all seven classes that graduate TBS each year. His talk on Monday was the culmination of Fox Co.’s ethics curriculum.

Capt. Roberto Scribner, protocol officer at TBS, said Pace was a favorite speaker on ethics and leadership because he had experience at all levels, from platoon leader to advisor to the president and from Vietnam to Washington, D.C., and “because he’s always been outspoken about doing the right thing, regardless of the consequences.”

Pace, however, remembered a time when he almost did the wrong thing. While he was patrolling near a village, a sniper shot his machine gunner, who died in his arms, he said. Enraged, Pace called for artillery fire on the village, drawing a look from his sergeant. “I could tell by the way he was looking at me I was doing something wrong,” he recalled. He called off the artillery and conducted a foot sweep instead.

Until that day, he said, he had thought his “moral compass” was firmly set. “That stunned me, what I was capable of doing,” he said, adding that he did not know how he could have lived with himself if he had ordered a shelling that killed innocent people. Making sound ethical decisions “is so fundamental to who you are as an officer and who you are as a human being,” he said.

Much like his situation outside that village, Pace said, the most difficult moral challenges arise when one is least prepared to deal with them, and they are never identical to some lesson studied in TBS. Rather than memorizing coursework, he said, the students need to train themselves to decide and act under pressure. He told them how he tries, at the start of each day, to work through the ethical challenges the next 24 hours might bring. Though most of those dilemmas never arise, he said, the exercise helps keep him thinking about who he is and how he makes choices.

It takes only three to five seconds to make a serious decision, Pace said, even if that short time seems like an eternity when facing one’s boss. “You’ll know whether it’s you or not, and if it’s not you, don’t do it,” he said. “You have your name and your integrity, and nobody can take either one of those from you. You can give them away, but nobody can take them from you.”

Among the most important moral and operational obligations officers have is the responsibility to take care of their Marines, Pace said. This means developing relationships with those in their command, learning about the problems they face and, when possible, helping with those problems. “Take five minutes a day and talk to one of your Marines about anything but the ongoing mission,” he advised.

“The reason to take care of your Marines is, it’s absolutely what you should do as a leader,” he said. But he added that, in addition to fulfilling a moral obligation, this kind of leadership also results in a higher-functioning unit, in which Marines will understand their commander’s intent and do their best to achieve the desired outcome. On the other hand, if a leader cares more about climbing the ranks than about his or her subordinates, those Marines will execute orders verbatim, regardless of the results, and let their commander bear the consequences, Pace said.

He advised against adopting the leadership styles of others if they don’t feel natural, recalling the time when he experimented with bawling out an errant subordinate simply because a more experienced sergeant regularly used this approach. “I felt like a complete fool,” he said. “Don’t do what you’re not comfortable doing. You’ll come across as phony.”

He reiterated this theme when a student asked how to prepare for losing Marines in the field. While leaders deal with the situation differently, Pace said commanders should let their Marines see that they care about them and that they are human too. “I’ve got a lot of Italian blood. Tears might come to my eyes quicker than yours,” he said, adding that he had never been embarrassed about letting his men see him cry for a fallen comrade. He suggested talking with the unit about the Marine who had been lost. If a commander feels some responsibility for the death, he should say so, Pace said. “I think if you just do what you’re comfortable with, you’ll be OK.”

And he urged the officers to stay calm under pressure and to have some fun with their units when possible. “The worse things are, the more you have to find a little humor,” he said.

After a long career including lofty positions, Pace told the lieutenants in the crowd that the job that had made the biggest impact on his life and character was his time as a second lieutenant on the battlefield. “If you’re sitting here wondering if you’re good enough, you’re my guy,” he said.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com 

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