How an Army ethicist works to mold moral soldiers
Maj. Jared Vineyard loves the Army. This, despite the car bomb in Iraq that took the lives of eight in his platoon. This, despite the faces around him of combat veterans who have seen “too much.”
Major Vineyard, an Army chaplain, U.S. Military Academy at West Point graduate, and decorated war veteran, is emerging as one of the military’s premier ethicists. He is charged with illuminating the line between right and wrong at a time when war seems but a hair trigger from peace, when the ways to kill grow ever more sophisticated, when the consequences stream round the world instantaneously.
But where some see danger, Major Vineyard sees opportunity. “The ability to do good is probably higher in the Army than in any other profession,” he insists.
That’s not necessarily obvious here at Fort Benning, Georgia, where people come to learn to kill. Some 60,000 soldiers train at the base every year, learning to shoot, jump from planes, crawl to cover. It’s a place where camo is regulation, not fashion; where boots are heavy and hair is sheared; where acronyms – IED, RPG, WMD – are a principal part of speech. The massive base covers some 285 square miles.
Its Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCOE) trains soldiers to win wars. Major Vineyard’s job here is to make sure they win them ethically, in a way that reflects the laws and values under which the Army operates. Ethics protect soldiers from what he calls “moral injury,” the psychological damage that can come from doing the wrong thing. They also protect nations from committing the kinds of atrocities that the United States did at My Lai during the Vietnam War, and Russia does almost daily in Ukraine.
In his 2 1/2 years at Fort Benning, Major Vineyard has taught more than
