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"As an Academy grad, would you speak to the question of ignored violations of the honor code. It seems to me that if these many were guilty of drug, and related charges..then a great many more had to know about it. This type of activity doesn't exist in a vacuum. And the honor code, as I understand it, specifically requires that this activity and those who indulge be reported. So doesn't that make the failure more widespread."

To your question of how the honor code (or honor concept if you're at USNA) applies -- as I said in a post just above, I'm not clear on how it does. If you know your neighbor is smoking pot (and I strongly agree that that stuff doesn't exist in a vacuum), your neighbor isn't lying, cheating or stealing. So, to me the only way the honor code can get you is if you're asked if you know anything about your neighbor smoking and you lie about it.

Of course, at USAFA if you know your neighbor cheated (lied or stole) and you don't report him, you're just as guilty as the cheater. At USNA the honor concept wouldn't make you just as guilty and subject to the same penalties as the cheater.

Part 1: "As an Academy grad, would you speak to the question of ignored violations of the honor code. It seems to me that if these many were guilty of drug, and related charges..then a great many more had to know about it. This type of activity doesn't exist in a vacuum. And the honor code, as I understand it, specifically requires that this activity and those who indulge be reported. So doesn't that make the failure more widespread."

Technically, you are correct. However, this sort of policy also becomes a trap of sorts in result of which innocent awareness of something places a cadet in a very awkward situation. Only an ideal system can avoid this conundrum. This is not an ideal world and service academies and all who make up their identity are, in reality, not ideal things but political things. In result, shit happens and it can get stuck on innocent people making their lives something of a nightmare with no closure.

Part 2: To your question of how the honor code (or honor concept if you're at USNA) applies -- as I said in a post just above, I'm not clear on how it does. If you know your neighbor is smoking pot (and I strongly agree that that stuff doesn't exist in a vacuum), your neighbor isn't lying, cheating or stealing. So, to me the only way the honor code can get you is if you're asked if you know anything about your neighbor smoking and you lie about it.

Not necessarily true. The honor code can be manipulated in very unusual ways. That's sad, but true. I know how these things can occur from experience. Having numerous relatives who are academy graduates including two sons, I have seen some pretty strange and troubling situations to include cases where innocent cadets have been purposely targeted under highly suspicious circumstances. Some didn't survive, some luckily did. These episodes aren't common necessarily but most of them are well known to all who would have been around at the time. In short, in these particular instances the honor code failed the innocent and benefitted the truly guilty. Again, sad but true. It would not be unfair to compare this sort of "political dynamic" to what happens in other societal institutions such as business and academia. If people believe it can't happen they are simply deluded. If you are somehow different or even ethically superior, you can be singled out by certain elements for "specialized attention." Fortunately, in most cases, the greater weight of group probity and rectitude eventually steps in to sort things out properly. But not always.

Of course, at USAFA if you know your neighbor cheated (lied or stole) and you don't report him, you're just as guilty as the cheater.

That's true, but note my tempering remark above.

At USNA the honor concept wouldn't make you just as guilty and subject to the same penalties as the cheater.

I'm not that familiar with honor policy at Annapolis but this would seem somewhat more fair considering that cadets feel very uncomfortable having to snitch on their fellow cadets. This owes, I think, to some feeling of esprit de corps at the cadet level hinging on respect for their peers as brothers in arms. Even the worst cadets deserve a shred of that consideration in the eyes of their compatriots. It's a tough deal to work out sometimes, but that is how things are generally viewed. Just as with a football team, it's a team consciousness and even the jerks on the team share the bond the team develops. And who knows, the jerk may still one day become something quite other than what he is now. After all, we are all fallible but potentially corrigible humans, are we not?