U.S. Army Code of Conduct Training: Let the POWs Tell Their Stories
Abstract
The U.S. Army must improve its Code of Conduct training methods. While the code is really a flexible guide to govern POW behavior, the Army teaches the code as if it were an inflexible guide which contains all that the soldier needs to know to survive as a POW. This paper examines the origins and meaning of the Code of Conduct, as well as current Army training procedures, which basically consist of rote memorization of the idealistic phrases and articles of the code. It also examines the experiences of POWs in the Korean and Southeast Asian Wars, and the U-2 RB-47, and Pueblo incidents. This paper concludes that the Army must supplement its idealistic protrayal of the Code of Conduct with the readily available experiences of how former POWs actually implemented the code. More importantly, Code of Conduct instruction must include practical instruction in combating the pressures of interrogation, isolation, depression, suicide, Malnutrition, and primitive medicine. This instruction must explain how former POWs overcame the problems associated with escape, torture, resistance, propaganda, communication, and camp organization.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 11, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA029708
Entities
People
- Geoffrey S. Moakley
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College