{"id":5346,"date":"2009-05-26T13:04:59","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T18:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2009-05-26T13:07:28","modified_gmt":"2009-05-26T18:07:28","slug":"professional-responsibility-one-marines-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/05\/professional-responsibility-one-marines-example\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Responsibility: One Marine’s Example"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I was driving home the evening of Memorial Day, I happened upon Terry Gross\u2019 Fresh Air<\/em>. She was interviewing<\/a> former Marine Donovan Campbell. From the NPR site:<\/p>\n

\n

Campbell served three combat deployments, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. In Iraq, he commanded Joker One, a platoon of new Marines that he trained and transformed into a fighting unit. They were assigned to Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province where they engaged in daily house-to-house combat with insurgents. Campbell has written a memoir about his experiences with the platoon called Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood<\/em><\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/em>You can read the NY Times<\/em> Book Review here<\/a>. \u00a0Among other accolades, Campbell was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor. I can proudly declare that Donovan and I were high school<\/a> classmates in Texas. Accordingly, I can personally attest that Donovan was then (and surely remains) a man of the highest integrity, in and outside the classroom, and on and off the sports field, where he excelled as a true scholar-athlete.<\/p>\n

One episode from the angst-ridden days of high school illustrates Donovan\u2019s character. I fondly recall that the spring semester senior year he gave up time from track-and-field and made a self-effacing foray into \u201cmy\u201d realm of thespian endeavors, donning Musketeer garb as a commedia dell\u2019arte<\/em> palace guard in Carlo Gozzi\u2019s Il Re Cervo<\/em> (The King Stag<\/em>) and standing ramrod-straight and bellowing \u201cSir, Yes, Sir!\u201d USMC-boot-camp style.<\/p>\n

At the cast party after the last performance, which would be my final show to stage-manage in high school, I choked up and felt some silly teenage tears flow. Donovan came by and shared with genuine fraternal care and without a shred of condescension, \u201cPeter, it\u2019s ok. I cried after our last football game.\u201d Picture the scene: a modern Atlas and Texas-bred lineman, who had broken many weight-lifting records at school, while still graduating at the top of our highly competitive class, nonetheless (to use a popular phrase de jour), having the \u201cempathy\u201d to show his own feelings and console a weepy high school drama geek. At that moment, I felt like one of William Wallace\u2019s clansmen in Braveheart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More seriously, I can also still remember during one Theology class Donovan offered, without any Pharisaic pretentiousness, a definition of integrity: \u201cwhat you did when no one was watching.\u201d Cf. Plato\u2019s Ring of Gyges<\/a>, perhaps? \u00a0<\/span>As such, I was not at all surprised to hear Donovan comment on ethics, leadership, and his professional responsibility as a Marine lieutenant in a war zone, and now as a business leader in the marketplace. From the Harvard Business blog<\/a>\u00a0(with emphasis added) earlier this year:<\/p>\n

\n

Donovan Campbell is currently a Zone Sales Leader Designate working for Frito-Lay in Dallas, Texas. He returned to Frito in September from a year-long involuntary military recall<\/strong>, <\/strong>during which he helped Special Operations Command Central start its Tribal Engagement Initiative in Afghanistan. After four years as a Marine Corps infantry officer, intelligence officer, and sniper platoon commander, including two tours in Iraq, Campbell graduated from Harvard Business School.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In this time of the public \u201capologies,\u201d spin, finger-pointing, and disingenuousness and cowardice from members of both parties, one selection from Donovan\u2019s book (on which he commented on-air) particularly struck me:<\/p>\n

\n

Because of my decisions, one of my Marines had lost both of his legs. It may not have been my fault, but it was certainly my responsibility because everything that happened to my Marines was my responsibility. That’s one of the first things you learn as an officer, and if you’re a leader who’s any good at all, then as you go on you know that you always err on the side of taking too much responsibility until the weight crushes you, and then your men pick you up, and then you take still more responsibility until they need to pick you up again.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Upon reading these words, I recalled a March 2005 story<\/a> on Campbell\u2019s missions in Ramadi [see p. 10ff], in which one of Campbell\u2019s squad leaders declared, \u201cMost platoon commanders would have positioned themselves within the platoon\u2026[b]ut Lt. Campbell is the kind of leader who wants to be there when the initial contact is made, so he leads from the front. He always says that if something is going to happen, he\u2019d rather it happen to him than to his guys.\u201d I can earnestly hope that Marines, such as my brother-in-law Pfc. J.H. Bascom, serve under such \u201cservant-leaders,\u201d as Campbell so termed his office in the NPR interview.<\/p>\n

I also wonder what would happen in the worlds of law, business, politics (e.g., past and present administrations), organized religion (e.g., some US Catholic bishops), et cetera, if those in positions of authority erred on the side of taking more, rather than less, responsibility for the consequences of their decisions and actions, even when they are not personally at fault. I audaciously hope for more servant-leaders like Donovan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I was driving home the evening of Memorial Day, I happened upon Terry Gross\u2019 Fresh Air. She was interviewing former Marine Donovan Campbell. From the NPR site: Campbell served three combat deployments, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. In Iraq, he commanded Joker One, a platoon of new Marines that he trained and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-ethics","category-popular-culture-and-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}