Article April 29, 1967 Issue

What's the Payoff?

[For young adults]

B. CRANDELL EPPS

This is an open letter to you who are entering the military service of your country.

In military life, as in civilian, traditional moral standards are under attack. People are asking: "Why be good? What's the payoff?" As a Chaplain and as a friend, I'd like to speak about questions of morality you will face.

The moral pickle many are in arises in part from the teaching that men have certain inner drives which must be expressed in order for them to be happy and healthy and that conventional morality should not be permitted to stand in the way. Current arguments for "the new morality" generally seem based on this premise. Such counsel is misleading because it ignores the basic needs of man's spiritual nature.

Send a comment to the editors