Faith of My Fathers by John McCain

another’s homes and celebrated weddings and christenings together.
    Submarine officers, like all naval officers, faithfully observed the professional distinctions governing their relationship to enlisted men, upon which the good order and discipline of the service depended. But living aboard ship in such small quarters bred an off-duty informality among officers and their enlisted shipmates. They were friends, and my father, like his father, valued those friendships highly.
    More than the manners of polite society distinguished the life of a naval officer. His character was expected to be above reproach, his life a full testament to the enduring virtues of an officer and a gentleman. Those virtues were not necessarily as many as those required of clergy. An officer’s honor could admit some vices, and many officers, my father and grandfather included, indulged more than a few. But honor would not permit even rare or small transgressions of the code of conduct that was expected to be as natural a part of an officer’s life as was his physical description.
    An officer must not lie, steal, or cheat—ever. He keeps his word, whatever the cost. He must not shirk his duties no matter how difficult or dangerous they are. His life is ransomed to his duty. An officer must trust his fellow officers, and expect their trust in return. He must not expect others to bear what he will not.
    An officer accepts the consequences of his actions. He must not hide his mistakes, nor transfer blame to others that is rightfully his. He admits his mistakes openly, and accepts whatever sanction is imposed upon him without complaint.
    For the obedience he is owed by his subordinates, an officer accepts certain solemn obligations to them in return, and an officer’s obligations to enlisted men are the most solemn of all. An officer must not confer his responsibilities on the men under his command. They are his alone. He does not put his men in jeopardy for any purpose that their country has not required they serve. He does not risk their lives and welfare for his sake, but only to answer the shared duty they are called to answer. He will not harm their reputations by his conduct or cause them to suffer shame or any penalty that only he deserves. My father once said, “Some officers get it backwards. They don’t understand that we are responsible for our men, not the other way around. That’s what forges trust and loyalty.”
    An officer accepts these and his many other responsibilities with gratitude. They are his honor. Any officer who stains his honor by violating these standards forfeits the respect of his fellow officers and no longer deserves to be included in their ranks. His presence among them is offensive and threatens the integrity of the service.
    Even in the small Navy world that disappeared with the Second World War, some officers fell short of the demands of honor. If they did so grievously, or repeatedly, or without remorse and requital, they were, if not thrown out of the service, so completely ostracized, so bereft of respect, that they would usually leave of their own accord. If the Navy tolerated their conduct, it would shame everyone in the service.
    My parents arrived in Hawaii in the aftermath of the infamous Massie scandal, which had deeply shaken prewar Hawaiian society and the entire Navy community there. A young lieutenant, Thomas Massie, who some time earlier had served on my father’s submarine, had committed an unpardonable breach of the code. He was, reportedly, an intemperate and unlikable man, and his petulant and difficult wife, Thalia Massie, one of three daughters of a Kentucky bluegrass family of aristocratic pretensions, was even less likable.
    One evening, Massie and his wife drove with a few other officers and their wives to a nightclub in a rough part of Honolulu. There the officer and his wife became very drunk. What happened next and why has never been determined with