Have you ever been placed in an position where your integrity was put on the line?

I was heartbroken when I crossed the finish line of the record APFT run. It had felt like a good run but I couldn’t keep up the pace over the last half mile and could tell I was bleeding time. I had missed it by 12 seconds.

10 minutes later, my grader came up and admitted he didn’t see me cross the line. With scorecard in hand, he asked if I had caught my finish time. The word “ethical dilemma” literally flashed through my head.

My answer began a long downward spiral to the end of my career as the new CG had decided to make examples of senior officers and NCO’s who couldn’t meet the standards. But when I eventually left the Army, I did so with honor in my heart, mind, and soul because during that encounter with my grader, I had immediately chosen Integrity and the ability to sleep at night, even knowing at best I had likely lost a chance to pin on an eagle.

Regrets? Yes. But not about confessing my failure at what was literally a moment of truth.

SFC Baber, excellent question, as many folks probably have, I've been put into some interesting situations and had to make weighted decisions; personally I've used the "mirror test" to help make those calls that don't have a "clear-cut" right-or-wrong answer... again, great question... thanks for hosting!

Sure have. For the sake of professionalism I won't go into what happened, but the end result was not being able to go to the Staff Sergeant board until long after my more...."willing to look away"... peer group did...