The difference between ethics and moral, beliefs, or values are very similar yet different in many ways. Ethics is very unique to every individual and can easily change. Values are learned behaviors with increased education and maturity. Morals are generally internal judgments versus community

When I think about ethics, I am reminded of an incident that occurred about a nine months ago that required me to apply my learned ethics to the test, my brigade commander personally requested that I relocate my Equal Opportunity office next to his office inside the command headquarters building. He said that having me placed close to his office would allow more time for us to work together on the Hawaiian Makua valley Issue(s) as well as any Army related Equal Opportunity issues that may come to surface in the future. Many people in my unit would consider this request to be a wonderful opportunity to get quality "face time" for future personal gain. I replied to the colonel that I would require about a week to evaluate this unexpected request. While evaluating the colonel's request to relocate my office, I had to think about several essential factors before committing myself to a final decision. The three main factors I needed to consider before making a decision was the Army's Equal Opportunity (EO) Army Regulation (AR) 600-20, my job description, and finally my personal ethics.

When I read the AR 600-20 (the Army's Manual for Equal Opportunity) from beginning to end to help me determine if moving into the brigade headquarters with my commander was authorized or not, I found absolutely nothing. I decided to investigate even more by calling the 25th Infantry Division EO office to determine what they might know about this subject and the answer was "we never had that problem, therefore we don't know." I then decided to call the Department of the Army Equal Opportunity branch to see if they have heard or seen anything in writing about this subject, their response was extremely vague at best. Therefore, I concluded that the Army does not have anything in writing addressing this situation.

My ethics are always positive in nature. I have always attempted to do the right thing in any given scenario that tests my limits. I feel I have good ethics because, I have been taught to know right from wrong at a very young age. However, if I were forced to do something unethical in order to survive, although I'm not proud of it, I did compromise my ethics in the past due to survival. When I think of past-learned behaviors, I can remember telling my father when I was around six years old that my older brother stole a watch from a store we had visited earlier that day. My father spanked my brother so hard that I began to feel bad about saying anything. After the "old fashioned" spanking was delivered my father took all five kids back to the store and made my brother return the watch (with us present) and apologize to the store manager. I can remember b

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1795
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)