When I think back to my years at Hancock County High School, in Hancock Ky., my mind goes back to those long trips in the school bus to basketball games. The players would all sit in the back and the cheerleaders in the front of the yellow transport. I was neither. I can’t shoot a basketball to save my life and, well, male cheerleaders were not yet en vogue at my high school. I was the one and only mascot. |
|
I tried out for the job and was given the honor of playing the part of the HCHS Hornet. I was red and gray and had a tail with a pointed arrow at the end. From the inside it was dark and smelled of games gone by. The tail was the favorite target of the young people to use guerrilla tactics to attempt to remove. My favorite trick was to run at full speed across the gym floor and slide as far as I could on my belly. I was good at playing the character of the hornet and played the role for all four years of high school. I had the energy and the charisma to energize the crowd. I found that I had the courage to play that role well when people could not see my face. I was acting the part. That was not me that was the hornet doing those things.
Integrity can be defined as doing the right thing even when no one is watching. I think back to my mascot days and I consider whether or not I could have done that if the world knew who I was. Integrity challenges us to be consistent in all situations.
We in the Army deal with this issue on the value level. Integrity is one of our core values that drives what we do and who we are. Integrity is defined as doing what is right in the legal and moral senses. Doing the right thing when we face personal cost is hard. It is rare that one can be found that will do the right thing in secret and at great personal cost. As Citizen Soldiers, we are called to integrity in the tasks we undertake both as civilians and as Soldiers. We are not to wear the green suit for a weekend a month and abandon all of the values when our dog tags are removed.
Proverbs tells us, “Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.” Confucius says, “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
I find it fitting to deal with integrity in this setting because of the private nature. Integrity is something that is dealt with in your person and not in public. Only you and God know of your private thoughts. Are you matching up? Do you walk your talk? Only you can identify the person inside the suit.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Comments & Ratings