Honor has bumpy history at Naval Academy

"Midshipmen are persons of integrity: They stand for that which is right.

They tell the truth and ensure that the full truth is known. They do not lie.

They embrace fairness in all actions. They ensure that work submitted as their own is their own, and that assistance received from any source is authorized and properly documented. They do not cheat.

They respect the property of others and ensure that others are able to benefit from the use of their own property. They do not steal."

Since its amendment in 2005, the Naval Academy Honor Concept - based on the statements above - has filled a 95-page book that explains what honor is and how honor violations are to be handled.

Other service academies rely on honor codes, but the Naval Academy sets a higher standard. A code, according to Naval Academy officials, is a list of prohibited activities; a concept sets higher goals and aspirations.

Midshipmen, in other words, are to behave properly out of a desire to behave well, and not just to avoid punishment.

The Naval Academy implemented its first honor code in 1865, under Superintendent Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter.

The goal was to eliminate the practice of shunning and reduce the number of fights that broke out when midshipmen accused each other of dishonor, as could happen any time mids from the North and South came into close contact.

Mids often imposed punishment on one another, including silencing, when the Brigade of Midshipmen would refuse to speak to a mid accused of dishonor, except in some official capacity.

"They would ignore that individual his entire time here," said Naval Academy Honor Officer Cmdr. Ron Karun, a 1993 graduate of the Naval Academy. "He was retained, but he remained an outcast."

The Naval Academy handled the most serious honor cases with "drumming out," Karun said.

"They brought the entire Brigade of Midshipmen into Tecumseh Court, they paraded the (dishonored) midshipman in front of his class, stripped him of his insignia, and marched him out of Gate 3, which became known as Bilger's Gate," Karun said.

A deadly fight in 1905 prompted the academy to formalize the honor process.

In that case, Midshipman Minor Meriwether Jr., who was from Louisiana, according to archival sources, said that an upperclassman, Midshipman James Robinson Branch Jr., who was from New York, unfairly singled him out for minor honor violations.

According to press accounts at the time, Branch called Meriwether the pejorative term "ratty" for breaking rules such as looking directly at upperclassmen and asking for food during meals.

Meriwether, in turn, called Branch "a damned lowdown sneak and coward."

Meriwether then challenged Branch to a fight, which the academy sanctioned by providing judges and guards.

The fighters used light, 3-ounce gloves, which meant they could hit fast and hard, and the match lasted 21, 22 or 23 rounds (accounts vary), and ended in a draw.

The fight accomplished its purpose when "Meriwether begged the pardon of Branch for the insulting language he had used, and the apology was accepted," according to The New York Times.

Both midshipmen walked back to Bancroft Hall and went to their rooms, but Branch died the next day of a blood clot in his brain.

The academy court-martialed Meriwether for manslaughter.

The New York Times sent a reporter to cover the court-martial, and wrote that midshipmen testified at trial that there had been at least 19 other fights at the academy in recent months, all of them over honor. One of the fights took place on the very night of Branch's funeral, noted the Times, which was on a crusade to end the physical hazing and mental abuse heaped upon midshipmen.

Meriwether testified that he fought Branch to avoid ostracism at the Naval Academy: "Under (such) circumstances I would have to resign, and could never hold up my head again."

Meriwether was acquitted of manslaughter, but was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. He was confined to the Naval Academy for one year, but was allowed to go on training cruises.

"The press and the court-martial put the Honor Concept on trial, since it was what caused the incident," Karun said.

Today's Honor Concept is an updated version of the more formalized version adopted in the early 1950s when class president, honor board chairman and battalion commander H. Ross Perot, Class of 1953, and the late Vice Adm. William P. Lawrence, then a midshipman, were tasked with designing an honor system.

"I went from platoon to platoon (interviewing midshipmen)," Perot, now a business tycoon, said in an interview with The Capital recently. "I wanted it to be the midshipmen's concept - it was not something that we imposed on them."

As in days gone by, though, peer pressure still plays a role.

"Your classmates, your friends there (at the academy) - you don't want to do anything to disappoint them," Perot said.