 who's spoken at ethics events here more often than any other single person, that is Lieutenant Colonel Lanelle Latandra. She and a colleague from the Air Force Academy, Dave Fitsky, wrote the definitive law review article on religion in the military, in which they reviewed every case ever litigated on separation of church and state, proselytizing religious self-expression. That's in the Air Force Law Review, and if that's a topic that interests you, it is truly the definitive work on the subject. She was also the legal advisor to the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal task force. So in that capacity, she came here to talk about that, sort of how the process of considering the repeal went. She is currently the staff judge advocate of the 375th Air Mobility Wing at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. So in that capacity, she's the senior jag for that unit. She's an Air Force Academy graduate, and we first met more than 10 years ago when we were both teaching at the Air Force Academy. You'll find Lynel to be a truly outstanding speaker and she will make you think. So, welcome, Lynel. Well, today Martin asked me to come and talk to you about this idea of constitutional ethics. And we talk about ethics and values all the time, right from wrong, and thank you, Clint, for giving us some examples about guard rules, guardrails, if you will. But I'm here to talk about a slightly different nuance to those ethical propositions. The idea when we're not looking at right versus wrong, but right versus right, what do we do when our personal beliefs which are grounded in those ethical principles that we talked about this morning conflict with our professional obligations or with our peoples? Which one trumps and why should it? So today we're gonna talk a little bit more about this idea that there is an entire separate ethical system that I believe derives from this, the Constitution. And so let's talk a little bit about what that means for us as military professionals. So with that, Martin mentioned that I'm a teacher. He also likes to put me right after lunch. And that's because I just like to instruct and get class participation. So here's a warning to those of you who sat in the back four rows again. You get to talk. So we're gonna learn a little bit about what this document means. Also a warning to the guys in the back. The questions are easier at the beginning. They get harder as the seminar goes along. So interact early and often and shout out answers. So what do you think of when you think about the Constitution? What comes to your mind? Shout it out. The Declaration of Independence. Sorry, what else? Founding Fathers, what else? Articles one, two, and three. I'm sorry, I missed the one that made everybody laugh. America, all right, good. He gets to sit where he sits. Oh well, we think about this piece of parchment. I heard Declaration of Independence, we think about the Bill of Rights, about what our freedoms are. Some of you think about laws. I heard this one, the Founding Fathers, those old dudes who wrote this thing. Anybody think about these people? Okay, judges who tell us what we're supposed to think about with respect to this? All right, and raise your hand, where are my recovering poly-sci majors? Who has horror flashbacks of reading the Anti-Federalists and Federalist Papers? I know you're out there, okay? Well, the one thing we didn't talk about, about our mental image, is this. You, because this is why we are here. You swore an oath to support and defend this. The word nation isn't in your oath, it's this. So when's the last time you thought about it? When's the last time you even read it? I know that some of you have it memorized because I see at promotion ceremonies you don't need the card anymore. But when did you think about it the last time? When did you study it? Because we are here because of this, and we need to understand what this constitution expects out of us. So with that, today I hope that we can put an umbrella on that profession that Don talked about this morning. The umbrella of constitutional ethics and what it requires out of us as professionals. And to do that, we'll hopefully first start by getting a deeper appreciation of the constitution, that foundation of what it is that we're here to support and defend. How does the constitution constrain us as professionals? Why it does that? And then we'll get into a little bit more about our constitutional ethics, about what our oath means, and then maybe a model for thinking about what those obligations are. And finally, we'll put it into practice and that's where you get to talk some more. But first, how does our constitution constrain us? So I saw that a couple of you guys were poli sci folks. I was not, I was an astronautical engineer, so I'm really not supposed to know anything about this. Okay, so somebody help me who some of you said you'd read the Federalist Anti-Federalist Papers. I'll give you a hint. That's four ways that the constitution constrains us. So shout out one, size, okay? That's not one that I had up there. Funding, who? Who does the funding? Congress, all right, you got one of my pictures. Okay, so Congress, the power of the purse, the power to regulate us. Okay, that's one way that the constitution constrains us. What's another one? Commander-in-Chief. Commander-in-Chief, okay, so the president, he also nominates us. It is Congress that actually ensures us. So the president, our Commander-in-Chief, what else? Authorities, how so? Great, and you know what? You got the one, I'm gonna give this to you. Supreme Law of the Land, I didn't think anybody would get this one. Okay, the Supreme Law of the Land, the constitution actually talks to us about that not only are these constitutional principles that we are bound to and have to apply, but we also are required to follow international treaties that we sign up to, customary international law. I put this one up just for you guys. Hopefully all you neighbor officers know what this is. We follow it because it's customary international law, not because we've signed the treaty yet. And as a result, we have to follow it. Why? Because the constitution tells us to. And the last one, I heard UCMJ, okay, the courts, okay, that other body within our constitutional practice that tells us whether or not we're following these rules correctly. And whether or not we need to tweak how it is that we are responding to various things and following our rules and obligations that these other constraints are putting in our way or are putting upon us. But now I wanna ask a different question. Not how, but why? Why is it, hopefully there it goes, why does the constitution constrain us? To put it bluntly, why in the world do people with money and guns ever submit to people armed only with gavels? Why do we follow? It's a piece of paper and it's over 200 years old. I think our nation has a unique and special role in how this constitution constrains us. And you can look no further than, I think Bush versus Gore back in 2000. If you think about that peaceable transition of power where we allowed nine individuals in robes to decide who was going to take over one of the major elements of our government. Why does it happen like that here as opposed to in Egypt? Where we've had the first democratically elected president who's been turned over by a coup. What is so different about our constitution and our way of being? Well, there was a Harvard law professor who took a look at the parchment and politics and the positive puzzle of constitutional commitment. And he came up with all sorts of reasons why Republicans and Democrats, why political actors might allow themselves to be constrained by rules even when they're in the majority. And he talked about reciprocity and following the rules and how that's important, but really what it boiled down to for him was this idea that when we are in one of those positions, those political actors, those government actors, we think about the fact that well maybe at some point we're gonna be on the other side of the coin. So I'm motivated by the fact that I wanna be treated fairly when I'm on the other side of the coin. I don't know if his thoughts really apply to us as a military in quite the same way. I'll share a little secret with you. Most of the officer corps tends to be conservative, tends to be very politically conservative, tends to vote for a distinct party. So if that's the case, what is it that motivates us differently? Because we never tend to be on that other side of the coin. So there was another Harvard Law professor who came out and said, well, there's something more. There's something more than simply this idea that well I want to be treated fairly because others might be on that other side of the coin at some point. And he talked about this idea of virtue, that there is something more to the constitution, this idea of constitutional ethics that is really at play here. And he looked back at a number of individuals, and I like to share a couple of these thoughts with you. It goes all the way back to Aristotle. This idea of a virtuous citizen, a virtuous citizen who has a willingness to both rule and to be ruled. The idea that a good citizen ought to be capable of both, both to govern and to be governed, to follow those rules. Madison went so far as to say that he knew that the constitution was gonna work out all right because the people were smart enough to pick leaders, to pick their public officers who would have both virtue and wisdom to do this. He's talking about us. But before we go off and get a big head and think about how great we must be, we aren't always. Sometimes we forget about our constitutional ethic. Sometimes we forget and put our own personal desires ahead of those that are required of us. We've seen it from Gerald McArthur. We've seen it more recently in Gerald McChrystal or this week with Commander Michael Misdavitch. Where the idea that personal gain, the idea of us taking our own interests and putting them above of the interests that we swore to defend would trump. I think that one of the reasons that we need to be very careful and why we need to have more discussions about this, more discussions about guardrails, more discussions about how we live our oath is because we risk the constitution just becoming a piece of parchment. If we leave it all to the thinking of the judges or worse, to the lawyers. If we instead, if we think of this idea that we are going to assume that we all follow the rules, we assume fidelity, or if we only look at this document as a series of rules, as a series of laws, and that's something that Don pointed out this morning. When we're only thinking about the laws that we have to live by, as opposed to a value system that we have to live by. So let's take a closer look at what our oath requires of us, and understand it a little more, and then we'll put it into some practice. First, we're saying that we're supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, both external and internal. And that we're bearing truth, faith, and allegiance to the same. So what did you mean when you said those words? Well, does it mean that you give up all your rights under the Constitution? No, that only happens when you're at the Academy. After that, you do get some of them back, but the courts have talked about what it means and which rights you actually have. And I'm gonna go through a couple of examples with you. The first is this case, and first, any medics or docs in the room? I'm sorry, but it seems like every court case that gets to the Supreme Court has to do with a doctor. So my apology is up front. In the case of Orloff v. Willoughby, we had an army doctor who had been paid, his whole training had been paid for by the army, all his medical school, et cetera. And when he came in, the army said, you have to sign an oath, an oath against communism. And he says, I'm not doing it. And the army says, well, fine, you can't be a doctor. We will not commission you in our officer corps. And he said, okay, I'll take my doctor degree and go on my wary way. And the army said, no, no, no, not so fast. You still owe us time. You're gonna be a lab tech. And he sued, and he said, wait a minute, I am entitled to my commission. And the Supreme Court said, no, you're not. They talked about that the very essence of military service is this subordination of individual desires and interests to that of the service. For my spades and Euker players, that means that service needs trump individual interests. The next major Supreme Court case that dealt with this idea of constitutional ethics had to do with Parker versus Levy, another army doctor during the Vietnam era. And he refused to treat special operators. He called them baby killers. And he went on to say, if he had a black soldier who came for treatment, he would encourage him not to go to war because we were singling out as a result of race, who we are sending to the front lines and who we weren't. We prosecuted him, convicted him. And he sued saying, wait a minute, these are my freedoms of speech. I should be allowed to make my peace to say what I want to say about the Vietnam War. And the courts, as only the Supreme Court justices can say, the rights of men in the armed forces must pre-forced be conditioned to meet certain overriding demands of discipline and duty. And if you break that all down, it simply means that discipline and duty trumps your rights. That you don't have unfettered ability to say what you want to say, not when you're in this uniform, not when you've raised your hand and an oath to this constitution. In the final court case that we'll take a look at, just so we can round out our understanding of what some of these constitutional ethical responsibilities are, had more to do with this idea of civil military relations. This idea that we are subservient to our civilian leaders and need to follow what they've told us to do. And this idea came with political leaflets on an army installation. And the installation commander said, you can't distribute those political leaflets on my base, on my post. And they sued and saying, wait a minute, the military can't restrict civilians free speech rights in this way. And the Supreme Court went on to say that the military can. And the reason for that is because in both reality and in appearance, we have to be a political. That we cannot be a handmaiden for political causes. So these are some of the fundamental principles that I think underline some of our obligations are constitutional ethics. I will say it's easy for the Supreme Court to talk with us a little bit about what those constitutional ethics are. It's much harder when we get it into practice. Because when I get into practice, I start pitting some personal beliefs against my professional obligations. I'm having to pick between a right versus a right, not a right versus a wrong. We've had some challenges in these last few years in particular, military and religion. Don't ask, don't tell. The fall of DOMA or the Defensive Marriage Act. Government shutdown and whatever we may think of the rightness or wrongness of those things. But what are our personal obligations? Our professional obligations when it comes to these issues. And how do I try to balance and figure out where I am and which one trumps the other? And to do that, I would like to talk with you about or propose a model of thinking. Something that we can hopefully use in our everyday practice to decide which of these issues need to trump the other. Because certainly when we raised our hand and took an oath, we didn't say you could never have a personal thought or that you could never comply with your own set of personal ethics or moral or religious beliefs. The key to us understanding our constitutional ethics is figuring out which hat am I wearing or is it a mix? So I would submit to you that the first step you need to take when you're hitting some of these complex problems is number one, to identify what setting you're in. What situation are you in? And it's not as easy as are you wearing the uniform or not. I got some pictures on the bottom. I would say that generally speaking, when you're talking to your kids, you're probably in a personal land, right? An idea of personal obligations. But what happens when, for example, my inquisitive daughter asked me questions about the last court case that I had. About what I think about the sentence. About whether that person should be going to jail. Am I starting to put on my military hat versus my mom hat? Or the one in the middle when you're in your church or your synagogue, a place of personal beliefs. But what happens at coffee hour when one of the military retirees asks you what you think about the latest government shutdown or about Obamacare? Am I starting to blend or bleed into a different situation where now am I acting as my personal capacity or are they looking at me in my civilian clothes knowing, yeah, and she's the jag at Scott? It also doesn't mean that any time I'm in my uniform, that my professional obligations always override. I think they often do. But what if it's a peer who just told you about a family matter? That he or she's getting separated from their husband. Do I have an ability to bring in my personal beliefs and tenets into that discussion? Hopefully you'll see that these situations or scenarios are areas where we have a lot of overlap. So the first step is to identify where you are and what situation you're in. But that's not where the model ends. The next step is you need to think about the action that you're about to take and ask yourself why. What is the purpose for you taking that action? What loyalty is driving what you are about to say? Are you taking it because of some sort of personal belief or are you making a statement driven by your professional obligations based on the position that you're in? These are tough questions. They're not necessarily questions that we like to confront ourselves with about what is our purpose for taking this step? What is our purpose for making this statement? But I would challenge you that if you can't ask yourself the question of why am I doing this? What loyalty is driving me to take this action or make this statement? Then we aren't following this idea of professional ethics, this idea of constitutional ethics. And finally, I think the final step we have to take a look at is what is the effect of what am I doing? Even if I'm driven by what I believe to be a professional obligation in making a statement, what would a reasonable observer looking in at my actions think? Would they perceive what I'm doing as being in my personal sphere or in my professional sphere? And what should they be perceiving? Now this sounds really esoteric, and so I'd like to actually put it into practice. Put it into practice by taking a look at some senior leaders that I had the privilege and distinct honor of being able to work with for over a course of a year. First, in February of 2010 at the State of the Union Address, President Obama stated that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was going to be repealed this year. Couple of days later, the Secretary of Defense sat up in front of the Senator Armed Services Committee and said it wasn't a question of whether, it was a question of how. We had gotten our marching orders from the Commander-in-Chief and we were going to make it happen. At that same testimony, Admiral Mullen stood up and said these words, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. At that same week, this man, General Carter Ham, a graduate of this fine institution, got a call to say you are going to become the head of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Committee and his response to that was I must admit that when he appointed me, I was not all that thrilled. He went on to say, and I'll see if I've got this, it was really funny, his statement. He went on to say I anticipated the task would be complex, tough, and sometimes uncomfortable and I now must acknowledge that I underestimated these factors. A couple of things you should know about General Ham. Devout Catholic, Jesuit educated. Deeply religious man. I was appointed as his legal advisor and we showed up on the first day and he gathered everybody in and he said, rule number one, check your personal feelings at the door. He made this very, very clear to us that we may have some deeply held personal beliefs about this topic that may spread the gamut, but it didn't matter because that wasn't what our job was. Our job was to take a look at what the secretary had asked us to do and we needed to leave our personal beliefs somewhere else. One of the first tasks that he gave me was to look at the law. So all you future three and four stars out there, there's gonna come a time where as you're going through Senate confirmation you have to sign a document and it talks about when you are required to give your personal beliefs before Congress. And General Ham came to me and said, Linnell, I know that I had to sign this thing and I don't remember what it says. So can you go find what it is that I signed and when I have to give my personal beliefs on something? No problem, sir. I was all excited, my very first legal challenge. So I found the document that he signed and I said, sir, you only have to tell your personal beliefs if you're called before a duly constituted committee of Congress. Got it, Linnell, check, okay. So we went through the whole year, 10 months of work, 10 months of study and at the end of the day, on November 30th, this was the assessment that General Ham made. The base on all that he saw coupled with the recommendations that were put forward in this report, the risk of repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is low. Huge statement by a four star general in the Army. We're then on our way, this is not the first time that we'd gone to Congress. We'd gone to Congress and sat in Senator's offices and on the way over, he'd look at me and go, Linnell, is this one of those times where I have to give my personal beliefs? No, sir, you don't, okay. We'd gone before staffers, sir, this isn't one of those either and we were finally on the way to go before a duly constituted committee of Congress. It was Hask and it was the day the report had been released and I looked at my hands and said, hey, sir, you know that question you asked me a long time ago? Yeah, this is one of those. And they went through the questioning and they get all the way down and they start by seniority and they all get all the way down to the young Democratic representative who's read this. The general ham put his name to and he goes, general ham, what's your personal belief about Don't Ask, Don't Tell? And you could have heard a pin drop. It wasn't that. That was his professional opinion. That was his opinion after 10 months of study that we could do this. But his personal belief about gays and lesbians serving in the military was very different. It was a closed session of the committee, meaning that we don't get to talk about what he actually said. I will tell you the man next to him, general, excuse me, the general counsel for DOD, Mr. J. Johnson, literally kind of did this head whip when he heard general ham's comment. And he said to the committee members, he goes, I've never heard that. I've worked with this man for 10 months on this issue and I have never once heard his personal beliefs about gay and lesbian service members. General ham was able to set aside and knew very well the difference between his personal beliefs and his professional obligations. We went back over across the river to the media room in the Pentagon. And of course, this is, I told you, this was a closed session of HASC, no reporters, none of the staffers are allowed to talk about anything that just went on in the room. And we're literally out of Capitol Hill, rode across the river in 20 minutes, we're back sitting in this room. And one of the reporters goes, general ham, I heard you have a personal opinion about gay and lesbians and whether or not they should serve openly in our military. And it was great, general ham goes, when called to testify before a duly constituted committee, I gave my personal opinion and that was it. So that's why he wears four stars. He also testified though in front of HASC, or excuse me, instead of the Senate Armed Service Committee, and he gave this response in a question posed to him by Senator McCain. And that question was general ham, in your personal opinion, do you believe we can do this? And he said yes. That after the months of study, he is convinced that the military can do this even in a time of war. I'd like to compare those comments with another general from the Army, a general Mixon. At the time he was a three star when he wrote this editorial, that in the stars and stripes, let your views be known. Are you wondering what to do to stop this ill-advised repeal of a policy? If those of you who are in favor of retaining the current policy do not speak up, there is no chance. He was rebuked. So what is different? Why does the man, to your right, what I understand when I visit this place is the best looking uniform, that's what I hear. He gets praised for his personal comments. The man on the left gets rebuked. The man in the middle's not well known about the issues that he faced. So what's different? Use the model we talked about. Think about identifying the setting, the situation, the purpose of their actions. Why is it different? This is where I get class participation. The tactics utilized, how so, ma'am? Okay, so the situation's different. One is an editorial through the media, another is in a committee in front of congressmen or senators. Okay, so the situation's different. What else is different? One is a response and one is individually motivated. Individually motivated by what? By his personal beliefs. Sir, awesome. One is speaking as a person, Admiral Mullen, I would say, because he caveated all of those comments. And the other was using his position, his office, as you put it. And I think that is absolutely right. We have to ask ourselves not only what are we saying and what's motivating us to say this, but in what capacity am I saying it in? Well, this may sound a little esoteric, so I thought I'd bring it down to a personal example, one I hit within the last month. And it wasn't until Martin asked me to come here that I got thinking about, I missed an opportunity to apply my own words to myself. Government shutdown. I have two women who work for me. A lot more than that, but two women that I'm gonna talk to you about today. Civilians. We'll call them Jean and Sally. Jean is my court reporter. And she can get along just fine with the government shutdown. She's got a retirement income coming in. They're doing okay. Husbands working. And then I have Sally. Sally can't miss a paycheck. Then I as a leader am given here are the legal exceptions, and it even says that, for legal exceptions, accepted legal personnel that I could exclude from the government shutdown. I can clearly get Jean in. It wasn't a problem. I could read the exception. Jean has no problem coming under those criteria. The one who can't afford it, ooh, it's a stretch. I might be able to read it in. I was torn. I've known, one thing that Martin didn't mention is this is my second time through Scott. I was there as a captain, brand spanking New Jag. I've known these women since I was a baby Air Force officer. And I was gonna have to look at one of them and say, I'm sorry. Or I was gonna have to look at the exceptions and go, well, can I stretch it to cover? And then I as a lawyer read the POMA, the Pay Our Military Act. And I'll tell you, you know what? I could read that that was a pretty expansive act. And I'd read all the letters that had flown about Congress over to our Secretary of Defense where they, the people who passed this law, believed it was an expansive authority for our military to pay our civilians. I can read the law, can I interpret it? Well, what did DOD do? They sent the interpretation over to DOJ and it took about seven to 10 days to get the answer back. That's a long time for the people who are working for me. This was tough. But if I walk myself through this, I'm clearly, no matter which way I cut it, I'm in a professional setting where my professional obligations need to rule supreme. And when I took the hard look at this decision that I had to make, I realized that my empathy for Sally, for the one who needed the job was driven by what? I heard it. My personal beliefs. My personal loyalty to her. My professional obligations told me I needed to do what my superiors and my civilian authority told me to do, which was read these exceptions narrowly to allow those who are empowered to read the law, which was not me, that once empowered to interpret the law to come back with the right answer. I'll submit that if we start thinking about constitutional ethics in our everyday life, it'll make the harder questions easier. DOMA was another hard one. I have heard it from the folks at the base. This conflicts with my religious beliefs. I don't understand how I can support this. Well, you support it because of your constitutional ethics, because you're not being asked about your personal opinion, you're being asked about your professional obligations. So let's walk through a few of those scenarios. Now I'll get some of my marines. Where are you? Oh, there's gotta be a couple of you. So you're a deployed commander in Afghanistan. And oh, and I saved this, sorry. I really did change this from an Air Force presentation to a Marine and Navy, but for some reason my Air Force ranks are still in here. Sergeant comes up to you. He's just learned that his lifelong partner was diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer and he has two months to live. He has five months left on his deployment. Can you approve excess leave? What would you do? No, they're not married. Yes, it goes to his mental disability. Say again? Okay, has to be on his page two? Okay, assign him to rear detachment, move him. He just got, well, that's a good question. Good, some more context. I want more facts. That's what the lawyers always say. You gotta give me more facts. Well, I'll give you the good lawyer answer. It depends. DoD, under DoD, emergency leave is authorized for family and family isn't necessarily defined. We in the Air Force, we like to define everything and so the Air Force has defined family and our family is spouse, parents, children, siblings. Can I do it in the Air Force? No, I can't. What's fascinating is the Marines can. I haven't actually looked at the Navy wrecks for emergency leave. Okay, so it doesn't have to be a family member? All right, there you got it from the expert. Okay, so it is different. Why is it different? Here's one that you may face soon when you go back. You've got a first sergeant or you're a commander in your unit and you routinely do gifts for young airmen or young sailors when they're getting married. Now you have a lesbian sailor in your unit who's getting married. Do you collect a gift? Yes, why? Have you done it for everyone else? I hear a lot of skitterings. Say a lot of true for the second one. Can you force unit members to contribute? Okay, so it's the same standard. You can ask, you can't require. Could try to read all the fine print and try to distinguish, well, this sailor's okay, but not this one. So, but maybe depending on the age or rank of the individual, you are going to be confronted with this. And I heard it over here, we need to treat them the same. You heard it this morning from Don. What was the problem with SECDEF's discussion or the initial policy that went out of OSD that only said that gay and lesbian service members could go away to go and get married? The problem was it was a special policy for a special group, so it's changed. It now doesn't identify a particular group. This notion of meritocracy, this notion of treating everyone the same has its roots in our constitutional ethical fiber. What about talking more specifically about your religious exercise? You just attended some base chapel services and the chaplain preached that homosexuality is an abomination. He's also your unit chaplain and there's an openly gay airman or sailor in your unit. Can you prohibit the chaplain from making such a sermon in the future? No, why? I heard no. Oh, no, now we're doing the... Why not, I heard it. Because of the context, it was delivered in a religious service. I will say the height of personal tenants, personal beliefs, especially for chaplains, is at its apex in the chapel. I believe that a chaplain today can say this in a sermon, even if they're wearing this uniform. Can you ask for a different chaplain? Should you? Ooh, say that louder. Depends on... How he interacts with the airman? Depends on how he interacts with the airman. How so? I mean, you know what? Our chaplains do this better than any of us. What would you expect out of your chaplain, your rabbi chaplain, if a Catholic sailor came up to him and said, Sir, how do I get to Ash Wednesday service? What does that chaplain do? He not only tells him when it is, where it is, he'll walk him there. Our chaplains understand the distinction between personal tenants and professional obligations. As one chaplain in the Don't Ask, Don't Tell committee, has a working group said, we work with sinners every day. They get it. So it depends on how they're treating the airman. So how about this? An accident occurs admiral on the flight deck. Not the flight line, we'll say that on the deck. And it kills a sailor. Can you limit what the chaplain is gonna say in the memorial service for your sailors? Yes, I believe you can. And I raise this because this happened. Before the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, there was a gay sailor who was killed on deck. And a chaplain in a memorial service said he was going to hell. That chaplain was disciplined, got non-judicial punishment, and I believe that was correct. I believe that there is a distinction between our personal beliefs and our professional obligations. And I believe that if we start taking a look at these ideas, both in the situation that we're in, in trying to understand what are the purpose behind what we're saying is, and what effect we are going to have, we can start to understand the distinction between when our constitutional ethics are telling us that our professional obligations are going to trump our personal beliefs. So I would challenge you today to think about and read your constitution. If, for those of you who ever have the distinct honor and privilege to commission someone, give it to them. We talked earlier today about this idea of a profession. And over lunch, we had some great discussions upstairs with some of the faculty and the presenters about when did it hit you that you were a professional? When did it hit you that you were different, that you are a member of a profession? And I would submit to you that if it's not hitting our sailors and airmen and soldiers and Marines when they raise their hand, we are doing something wrong. That we, as our military's leaders and our military's future senior leaders, we need to be doing something different when someone's raising their hand and taking this oath. So what can you do? I believe if we all commit to these things, we will go a long way to advancing this idea of constitutional ethics. Number one, give this to somebody. Take it as your personal obligation that if someone has told you that they want you to commission them, then put them off on the right foot. Read this constitution. Think about this constitution. Read and think about your oath. Talk about it. Use constitutional language in your everyday workplace and that's gonna make me sound like a real dork, okay? All right, here's how we do it. How many of you have administered non-judicial punishment before? Okay? You all have executed constitutional ethics in everyday life and it's called due process. What do you have to do after you gave them the article 15? They get a chance to rebut, they get three duty days to come back, okay? That's due process. If you walk around going, oh, I know what I'm gonna punish them with, you're not living up to your constitutional ethics because we have said that we will execute and give due process to that member, that I'm not gonna make up my mind about what happened or how I'm gonna punish until they come back to me. You can have that discussion with your younger instance. Hey sir, what are you gonna punish them with? We're not gonna talk about that yet. They're entitled to this thing called due process. Have you read your constitution lately? So you can use it in your everyday life and you can talk about constitutional ethics with your team. Talk about those challenges. I pulled all my jags together and talked to them about the impact of government shutdown, about whether or not we were doing the right thing with how we were executing our exceptions and whether or not we needed to do the harder thing until somebody they needed to go home. I hope they learned from that. They will learn from that if we give them the opportunity to be a part of our discussion, a greater part of our profession. And I would submit to you that if we start living and thinking about our constitutional ethics, it'll make these challenges seem a lot simpler. So with that, I turn it over to whatever questions you may have.