An Honourable Tattoo?
It’s been a while since we did an “in the news” article, but today I came across an example of honour and honesty, which, while a bit silly, was still too good to pass by. Task and Purpose, a USA focused military and veterans focused website, published an article that told the story of why an American soldier had got his command sergeant major’s face tattooed on his left thigh.
The initial reason unsurprising appears to be that that the soldier in question lost a bet with a friend. Yet of more interest to us is that his friend offered to let him out of the bet, but he said ‘no, I’m a man of my word. I’m going to get the tattoo’. Words can not do justice to such an exemplary display of the spirit of honour and honesty.
While undoubtedly, this gentleman would have been wiser to not have made the bet in the first place and should definitely have accepted his friend’s offer of absolution. His dedication to fulfilling the demands of his judgment of honour and honesty are worthy of commendation nevertheless. I can not but feel ashamed of my own moral weakness compared to this man’s robust sense of his own honour.
Sure, the reason he came to our attention was for something silly and inconsequential, yet as the saying ‘as it goes in the little things, so it goes in the big’ implies. A man who can be relied on to keep his word when the stakes are small but unpleasant can likely be relied on to keep his word when the consequences are more significant. This man passed the test, would you or I?
First Published on https://www.andrew-stadtmauer.com on the 4th of July 2021