What Happened To Honor?

I know its been a while since I posted, but I feel like tonight I really need to get upon the soap box. My question to the world today? What happened to honor? duty? integrity? Or just being a decent human being?

Now I know everyone's version of "decent" varies, but I think we can all agree one should not go out of their way to hurt another for their own personal satisfaction or gain? By hurt, of course could mean a variety of different things. So I will leave that to your imagination.

When I first came into Army life, the standards were high. You screwed up, you were out. You cheated on your wife, your rear belonged to the Army. You beat your kids, failed to pay child support, or abandoned them you went to jail or faced serious consequences. You drank too much or did drugs you got help or left the Army. DWI's... there were NEVER more than one while you were in the Army. The wives watced their kids. The houses were never trashed and the lawns were always clean.

So my question is what happened? My first thought is maybe after 9/11 when there was an increased need for soldiers and everybody wanted a little payback, maybe our "selection" process slacked a little. Maybe we started overlooking little issues and before you know it, those little issues snowballed.

Maybe its like this all over and I've just been to naive to see it until now.

How is it that a nation with one of the strongest Army's in the world with the highest of moral standards, has turned into what we see before us today?

Just in one day, You can see a soldier leaving his family for another female. You see multiple wives neglecting their children. You see trashed homes, and disgusting yards. You see wives doing things that make me want to lie about being associated with them. You hear about how soldiers have gotten 2-3 DWI's and nothing is being done. You hear how another soldier has gotten drunk and killed an entire family. You hear about how we should be sensitive to these soldiers because they may have PTSD.

I've made my feelings about PTSD very well known. There were wars before Iraq and Afghanistan and it was never ok for those soldiers to get away with this, so why is it ok now?

Ghandi said, "be the change you want to see in the world". I can't imagine anyone set out to make these kinds of changes.

I put this question before all military wives, family members and soldiers reading my blog...what happened?