17th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism: October 6, 2016

• Citation: Vol. 68 No. 3
• Publication year: 2017

17th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism: October 6, 2016

Benjamin Grimes

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Keynote Address

17th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism: October 6, 2016

by Lt. Col. Benjamin Grimes^*

Professional identity is a mercurial thing. It is a combination of skills, values, and ways of thinking that identifies us to others and forms the basis of our understanding of ourselves. But why should we endeavor to affirmatively instill a certain identity—or to provide the seeds of professional identity—in our students and young attorneys? To what end is identity useful, what elements are important, and how do we do it?

Unlike the many participants in this Symposium and contributors to this issue of the Mercer Law Review, I am neither an academic nor a remarkable practitioner. I have taught new attorneys, LL.M. students, and trial practitioners, but I was a professor of law for only a short time. What I offer below are my reflections on identity after a career in the Army as a lawyer, officer, and leader. Like all such commentary, mine is intensely personal, informed by my experiences, and influenced by my present stage—transitioning out of uniform and my insular military practice and into a broader profession whose breadth and diversity is amazing. I offer my experiences to you as an example of the power of identity, to remind educators that your students are listening, and to inspire students and

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new attorneys with the knowledge that it really does matter who you are and what you become.

I have spent the last twenty years as an officer of the United States Army. And as we consider professional identity and its formation, I can think of no more established and effective crucible of identity than the military. Not only must the military branches train men and women in the tasks of war (an inevitability of human nature few of us look forward to), they must prepare each member to be a leader, to rally others, and to make difficult decisions should the role they find themselves in require it. My path began at West Point, the nation's oldest military academy.¹

West Point famously adheres to a motto of "Duty, Honor, Country," and that motto is instilled in each cadet in a variety of ways.² Through the example of the faculty and woven into virtually every facet of cadet education, the motto becomes a framework for cadets' identities as leaders and officers. The importance of this framework is emphasized to every cadet, who must memorize and recite, among other bits of trivia, a portion of remarks made by General Douglas MacArthur.

On May 12th, 1962, General MacArthur was given the Thayer Award for leadership, and his remarks to the corps of cadets that day included the following:

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.³

He went on to say:

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

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But these are some of the things they do. They build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as the custodians of the nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak, and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.⁴

That short passage was among the collection of facts, trivia, and history all cadets must memorize...