That’s good, because the principles at demand for combat leadership, they really don’t change. The company that I was a member in—as I’m sure you know—after Beast Barracks you are assigned to a company in one of the four regiments. Did you feel—you must’ve felt disappointed and—. So it was not the Korean generation, you were being taught by people who were a little bit older than you are, then—senior officers? They had infected the academy with the corruption of that war. And you walk into Wall Street, and suddenly it is an environment you can recognize—it seems familiar to you. I remained a reserve officer for the next 13 years, and I always stood—I try to remain current as far as my officership, and in contact with classmates and other soldiers. Well, these drill rolls actually existed, and they were physical lists on paper, and these cadets, many cadets would sit down and just put checks down next to people’s names if they even thought they might’ve ever cheated. I think our class did feel shame and does feel shame, because I think our class, in some ways, bore an enormous unspoken responsibility. So you started your question by asking me how do you teach leadership? Yeah, I think—now, I have to qualify this, because I left the Army after five years. So we were together in the same company for the first three years of my cadet career until the scandal. I say "always" because honor scandals have happened before. It was, yeah. You were always very good at mathematics.” I was always pretty good at mathematics. I came—I was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and a very, very parochial, if not insulated, Italian-American neighborhood. The fact that only 150 suffered for something nearly everyone had done only added to the disillusionment among cadets. But the story—its kind of interesting because my friends said, “You have to come down here. The last major cheating scandal at West Point was in 1976, when more than 150 seniors, or firsties, were expelled or resigned for cheating on a … And you are taught here that you have a responsibility unlike any other profession, because when you are engaged in combat and you are firing upon an objective and maneuvering to take it, you are going with forethought to make decisions knowing that there’s a great chance the person that you send forward to execute either fire or maneuver is not going to come back. I’m sure there’s some of that. When the commission showed up to study the problem, West Point stonewalled them. Maybe because my family had grounded in me a deep love of the country and a deep love of service to the country, I saw through that. And my roommate at the time was a secretary to the honor committee, and so his life changed overnight. So I’ll give you an example, From the 101st Airborne to the Trading Floor. And dare I say even the cadets that suffered the current popular cultural gestalt of moral relativism while they were here, at their core desired and wanted to be combat leaders. And I remember more than a handful of my mathematics professors finishing the work with the boards with 15, 20, 25 minutes left in the class and describing a combat experience. I remember a Major Davison, in military instruction—I think, believe he was class of 1964. And every time I went home, until my first class year, just because we could go home in civilian clothes, and it was easier, I would go home in uniform, and I was always heralded. I’ll never—I was startled, because I thought that this was a monolith, and I quickly realized that every individual cadet’s interpretation of duty and honor or country started from a very, very different perspective of what those words meant and how they internalized them. That’s a great point. He was brought back to active duty as Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy (1977–1981) after 1976 West Point cheating scandal involving 151 cadets (see also, 1951 West Point cheating scandal). The sooner the academy faces up to the imperfect nature of the principle upon which the academy was founded, the better. And I remember—and we had to recite, every day, in most classes—particularly mathematics, where we would take positions at our blackboards and solve a problem, and then brief on that problem. I had absolutely no idea—I never really took serious in my own contemplation the idea that I would ever leave the Army, so I didn’t know how to look for a job. I remember the first time I heard an upperclassman kind of bad-mouthing some of the policies of the Academy. I can tell you that a vast majority—if almost every one of my professors that were uniformed here, and when I was a cadet, I dare say that seemed like 95 percent of the staff—were combat veterans. You have to study battle. And much like the gestalt of the popular culture takes root, and it is least commonly denominated, people would just almost organically attract to antiwar protests. Now, where were you coming from—where did you grow up? So one of the things you had to do after Plebe Summer, just to go back, is you had to memorize the drill roll for each class in your company. Dare I say they are—they’re definitional. In total, 73 cadets — 72 freshmen and one sophomore — were identified to have allegedly cheated on a calculus final in May, Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, a West Point … Trending Now. The West Point Center for Oral History is a privately funded organization that relies on the generosity of donors. That theme—there’s a saying and a phrase that’s used amongst cadets and graduates. And it was interesting, because again, that exercise was going on. I distinctly remember that. I had to actually leave Fort Campbell, and I took a compassionate reassignment to Fort Hamilton in New York City—actually, Fort Dix, and I got assigned to Fort Hamilton. The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known as West Point, Army, Army West Point, The Academy, or simply The Point, is a four-year federal service academy in West Point, New York.It was originally established as a fort that sits on strategic high ground overlooking the Hudson River with a scenic view, 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City. And it was a great point of honor for my grandfather—he actually left the military as a noncommissioned officer of the Italian Army. My mom was not sick, but she was an Italian-American housewife. According to USA Today, the scope of the cheating makes it the worst cheating incident at West Point since 1976 when 153 cadets resigned or were expelled for cheating on an electrical engineering exam. Did you know—you must’ve known some of the cadets that were involved with this. Let’s come back to the time here at West Point during this period. I think the exercise was handed in over the holiday period of 19—. The honor code was also being misused to remove cadets considered "undesirable" from the academy by bringing false charges and manipulating the honor system. So what are they—this would be my take on those incontrovertible principles. My management leadership operation, dare I say, capacity, capability, is bounded in the skills around platoon leadership. So you had to be something of a maverick to want to stand up and say, “I’m going to go to the [United States] Military Academy now,” particularly in the middle of the Vietnam War—or actually, at the end of the Vietnam War, even more—. It was a combination of heart—he had congenital heart disease that went undiagnosed, and just was rendered incapable. “The whole system broke down,” Ophardt said. The cheating scandal is the biggest at West Point since 1976, when 153 cadets resigned or were expelled for cheating on an electrical engineering exam. You’re learning your craft because you must learn your craft, and the other thing here is you’re executing the tenets of your craft every day. And fast forward to the summer now of our Cow Year, into our first of year—now, you have to remember, the First Class year of a cadet is so phenomenally anticipated and so waited for, because, obviously, it’s your last year at the Academy. My classmates used to tease me—they said I had a very, very thick rubber band that was sewed in my back, and it would only stretch up to West Point and then spring back to my neighborhood in Brooklyn. So I was experiencing—I don’t want to paint the picture like we felt estranged here. And between a sort of big land forces kind of Army, like World War II—, Small unit, guerilla-based campaign, although there were—the initial strategy doctrine was based in “search and destroy” and clear the areas to hold them without, maybe, the counterinsurgency piece initially in Vietnam—I’m not an expert—, Well, counterinsurgency would’ve come, though, before you—I mean war shifted with—. But absolutely—so what I’m describing here is instructors would say things like to us, “When I was a cadet, we were not allowed to blank,” or “We had to wear this uniform at this point.” Every fine detail of the cadet experience is so valued by its graduates that the compulsion is to keep it the same and have every feature the same, because graduates feel so proud and also confident that they are the product that was desired. One was the cadets who were completely indignant, and almost felt they should be able to cheat, and were very reactive to the potential that they could be thrown out for an honor scandal— which was and should be the standard—started to agitate, basically against the whole surety of the honor code as it was being practiced. West Point must retain its unique nature. Yeah. You only put your minimum, five years and gone. It was a special provisional detachment. The legacy of the honor code at West Point is as flawed as the human beings who comprise its corps of cadets and faculty. He had commanded a brigade in the combat organization of the 101st Airborne Division during the conduct of that battle. And the academy was a place where those inputs weren’t really defining the environment. He was a devout Airborne soldier named Sidney Berry. Well, of course, as a young man, you yearn for it to be a chivalrous and successful national mission and national adventure. So branch night, I stood up and said, “Infantry,” with great pride. What did you go to do after you left? So my dad went to his captain and asked him if he could go and see his family, these small hamlets in the mountains in the south of Italy—are very interesting and isolated subcultures. Right, 1982—the stock market rally begins in late August of 1982, and as we all know, the beginnings of long-term economic expansions don’t feel like they’re going to be long-term economic expansions. And my dad received a V letter from my grandfather, commanding him, basically as strong Italian fathers will do to their sons, that he must go visit his relatives in the village where my dad was actually born. Did you know you shouldn’t have collaborated? Written from the perspective of the Academy Superintendent, it raises issues of ethics, organizational change and action planning in the face of conflicting stakeholder interests. And I was never called for even a drill roll check, nor were any persons in my company. Yeah, actually—and even more important, organizing the conduct of basically what—the honor code and the administration of the honor code, the enforcement of it, is not much unlike our jurisprudential system. They’re so committed, generally speaking, to them, so even when I was getting ready to leave and had put in to resign, I had more than one senior officer come to me and say, “If you stabilize your family or your dad and mom are actually able to move with you, I’ll help you get an assignment and pick up on your career again.” It was just amazing—you always feel as though you’re part of the Army. But we graduated with Major General Berry as our Superintendent. So when you’re here, and you’re studying the subject matter, you’re not conditional or conditioned by the environment—you’re going to ply your craft. If you are slightly potentialed to want to be here—slightly potentialed in your deepest personality to be selfless—if you have the United States of America as part of your core identity—you have to understand that the rewards of selfless leadership are enormously infectious. We appreciate your gererosity! And you learn them here from the first day you’re here. And the captain said, “Well”—my dad was not bold enough to say, “I’d like to bring them food or something.” He would just figure out—so the captain gave him a day pass to go and visit his family, and suggested that he bring some food and other supplies, sundries to them. The upper classes led the military formation of the cadets as much as the staff here, so it’s a very unique environment. The honor codes at the Air Force and Naval academies are based West Point's code, and many prominent civilian colleges and universities founded their honor codes in imitation of West Point's. But there had been another honor scandal a decade before that the academy successfully covered up and hid from the public. Clean up the Academy, bring some pace and depth around what was really the most important principles that had to be at work every day in a cadet’s life. And so he had to retire with a very small disability pension. So when you would ask my dad, “What are you,” he probably would say, “I’m a male, husband, father, American, Catholic,” or “Catholic, American.”. The senior staff, as I remember—I remember seeing the Korean service ribbon on some of the senior staff and permanent professors—dare I say when I started our Superintendent, William Knowlton, General Knowlton—he served in World War II, in fact. It was really the trigger for me to leave the Army, actually. Among them was the son of the chief of staff of the army, Gen. Harold K. Johnson, whom I had known in high school in Leavenworth, Kansas. In a letter to the secretary of the Army, 10 military lawyers representing the accused cadets alleged that more than 300 cadets had cheated on the exam. And if you did, why?” And I guess bring it to the next level of the honor procedure. But how does that really translate? It’s very interesting. The problem was that the academy now had to make a decision around how to process these honor boards in a way that protected the principles of the honor code, and from an administrative and just execution perspective, was not overwhelming—as it did began to overwhelm. As I remember, they lived in central barracks, and they were almost like a foreign antibody—it was horrible. Spring through First—yeah. I was very blessed. And so I had to help financially, even while I was a cadet. My dad hadn’t been there since—. David S. Holloway/Getty Images So were you investigated—was every cadet investigated for their commitment? So for me, it was quite an abrupt and—but heartening transition. What had happened over the previous decade was that officers on the faculty at the academy had brought back from their service in Vietnam a culture of lying that had pervaded that war from beginning to end. Did you find yourself when you would travel off being mocked and harassed by people? The socialization of the anti-military and anti-war movement had trickled from the campuses to the high school hallways by the time 1969, ’70, ’71, that period. In the largest cheating scandal to rock the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in nearly 45 years, 73 cadets were accused of breaking the school’s honor code by cheating during a … Now, did—are you the first to go to West Point in your family? Runners—runners and clerks, and my neighborhood had a good amount of runners and low-level Wall Street professionals. We were always heralded and really, really accommodated. Be the first to know! Anyway, my dad did that, and in 1980 my dad took a massive heart attack—1979—1980. During the 1976 cheating scandal — there have been several others — the system as directed by the cadets and as changed by the academy personnel to deal with the scandal came under heavy fire from cadets, irate parents, Congress, and defense attorneys assigned to counsel cadets accused of cheating. But you were there, though, at sort of the cross, it seems to me, between the heroic stories of World War II—, And then the intersection of that with the very non-heroic stories of Vietnam. And one of the few times I defied my parents, and I selected the 101st Airborne Division. Some of the cadets that were indicted—if I dare say that word—were indignant. Remember in the East Coast, the only place that was close was Fort Dix, and that wasn’t a operational unit, it wasn’t an operational base. And so the—it must’ve been quite an achievement for you. Yes. And in fact, I remember some of my cadet summers actually working to make money to give to my family. Five years. It caused, for me, a redoubling of my dedication to the Academy. Is that what happens next, or is the—, I can’t quite remember, but what I believe happened was they were expelled from the Corps, and the federal government, at the Department of Army level, reacted to the forces, the social and political forces that were bringing to bear on the construction, which challenged the idea that, in fact, the Academy had protected the honor code well enough so that it was functioning and being followed. They were all cadets that had been found guilty on honor, or were awaiting their trial, their honor trial, or awaiting results. Viola especially emphasizes the lifelong importance of his training at West Point for the military and civilian world. Yes. It’s the point where you ask yourself do you understand the importance of your role as a combat leader. And I was born in a neighborhood that was very close to Wall Street, and the generation before me—’cause Wall Street always had a demand, especially in those days, for pretty much cheap labor. So I’m sure people probably didn’t have it as an academic priority like, let’s say, the social sciences paper that we had to write our first class year. The first was in 1951, when more than 100 cadets were charged with cheating on an exam, 30 of them players on the football team. I think you—this place overwhelms you in a positive sense. And I think I have about 100, close to 100 classmates, who graduated with the class of ’78—many of them, many of them went on to have stellar military careers. Everyone has a different capacity or understanding of it, but the principles of the Academy are overwhelming, and they are sown into you. So I remember distinctly, as a young man, reading about some of the first battles—I can’t remember specifically which ones. I think he—well, I don’t know what you would call that. Now, why’d you get out of the Army? Integrity— honesty—attempting to become an ever-improving subject matter expert. These instructors you had at the time, they were—you said some of them were Vietnam veterans. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This is very, very unique. I joined the crowd. A very tall fellow, ramrod straight, and he wore the Silver Star, and I can remember he taught us small unit tactics in military instruction either my Plebe or my Yearling Year. I’m just trying to understand this. Yeah, I think—yeah, I do. In August 1976, where it was found that possibly over half of the junior class at the Academy had violated the honor code by cheating on a case assignment. You have to study leadership in combat situations. From 1946 to 1951, Harkins served as deputy Commandant of Cadets at West Point and then as commandant. Spring through First Class year summer, yeah. I don’t have specific memory or recall. I think it was the spring of our Cow Year, our third year here, and I remember during breakfast formation—these might be false memories. Leaders at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, will allow most of the students involved in a major cheating scandal to remain at … Yet another honor scandal should be evidence enough that West Point still has a long way to go. It’s a very enjoyable year. Right. The 1976 case is … That date might be wrong, but I think the armistice peace treaty was signed January of 1973—so everyone in the class had applied with the foreknowledge that we were a nation at war, and yet before we entered, it was a nation now post-war. And I’m sure it was enormously evolving around the subculture here or impactful on what was going on outside the gates. And my dad said to me, “Before I pass, I want to go to the village.” And so in April of 1980, we went to this village—I had never been there—where my dad was born. You know, soldiering is as specific, is as—the skills of soldiering and the operational art that you must study and feel comfortable mastering is not unlike any other intellectual academic discipline. When the distaste for the Army was at a peak.
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