Ethical decisions

Your job is to make decisions. But your duty is to make the right decisions...the ethical decisions. In my first letter to all Flag and General Officers of the Navy and Marine Corps, sent the day I was confirmed as Secretary of the Navy, I stated this duty very frankly: "If we cannot do something ethically, if it is not in keeping with our values--then we just won't do it."

I want to restate that to each and everyone in the Naval Service...to make sure that every Sailor, Marine and civil servant knows that that is the standard. If we can't do something ethically, I don't want it done. We need to develop and maintain--within each of us individually, and collectively within the entire Naval Service--the character to make ethical decisions.

Former Secretary of the Navy, John Dalton