‘Mistakes Were Made,’ or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Balance the Passive and Active Voice

For the longest time, this author has struggled with the passive voice. Serving on the Army Staff, this scripture of the Army writing requirement has been further evangelized to me. Notwithstanding the somewhat ironic (and intentional) use of the passive voice in the previous sentence, the Army plays a balancing act with its written communication. While on one hand, writers, commanders, and leaders have an innate desire to ‘pin the rose’ on the actor involved in successes, blame for failure carries a negative connotation. The following are this author’s thoughts on the delicate balance that one must work between the tenses to both achieve the Army’s writing style and sometimes attain the non-attributional nature of blameless discourse. In doing so, the Army writing style itself, assignment of blame, and the balancing act of both are examined.

The Army Writing Style

Descriptions of the ‘The Army Writing Style,’ to this author’s search, can only be found in one place. The entirety of the guidance that specifies how an organization that currently contains 485,000 soldiers and is budgeted for $178 Billion communicates in the written form is Army Regulation 25-50, Preparing and Managing Correspondence, listed concisely on page 7. The key points are as follows, ‘Effective Army writing is understood by the reader in a single rapid reading and is clear, concise, and well organized,’ and the remainder of the standard discusses the avoidance of the passive voice. A further discussion of form requires a prospective author to ‘Use “I,” “you,” and “we” as subjects of sentences instead of this office, this headquarters, this command, all individuals, and so forth.’ For reference, the entire guidance is pasted below in its entirety:

Blame’s Use

Assigning blame or action to items, therefore, is apparently critical for the Army’s written releases or in communication over a written medium. Yet, this style can also be elusive when an item is contentious or blame is correctly not assigned to an individual. Take for instance this recent press release from the Headquarters Department of the Army Office of Public Affairs that discusses changes to the Army physical fitness test:

The new scoring standards were developed by using the data from the nearly 630,000 ACFT scores, historic performance rates from the APFT, and scoring scales from other branches of the U.S. military for the plank event.

The Army’s writing style guide would likely say that the above paragraph does not depict ‘who’ developed the new standards. With an issue as contentious as the implementation of a physical fitness test that has generated RAND studies, congressional interest, and has gone through many iterations, blame to an individual is not always in the interest of the Army as an organization. Nevertheless, taken to an extreme, this type of communication presents a dangerous precedent. Take for instance, a platoon live fire gone awry. Would an official explanation that concluded the following be acceptable?

The stray rounds shot by the platoon were found as far away as the main post garrison. Improper safety measures were found to have been used, and this led to the failure.

Likely, this would not be acceptable, but it also absolves individuals of their responsibilities. A report that assigned blame would be far more helpful in determining how retraining or corrective action should be taken. For instance, the following:

1LT Smith did not conduct proper safety measures for the conduct of his range. CPT Johnson, his company commander, failed to validate the range prior to action.

Clearly this second after action report is better, and shows exactly who is accountable for the failure at the range. Yet the first example from the Army Combat Fitness Test implementation also demonstrates the careful balancing act the Army teeters upon. While this piece does not intend to discuss the controversial implementation and extended timeline for this fitness test, assigning singular blame to an individual in this instance would be unnecessarily damaging. While the Army is indeed run by the Secretary of the Army who is responsible for all successes and failures of such, she is beholden to many stakeholders that limit her freedom of movement. How then, can one, through the written word, elucidate exactly who is responsible for a years long issue? Someone, or some group, must be fully responsible at some point, correct?

Blame, Assignment, and Responsibility

President Truman famously had a sign on his desk stating that ‘The Buck Stops Here,’ and described it as such:

The President–whoever he is–has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.

While this specifically discusses the rationale for who must make the decision, its corollary is that the decision-maker, in this case, the President of the United States, must also be responsible for his decision. Obfuscating this fact using the written form through the utilization of the passive voice should absolutely be avoided.

Further across the spectrum of the active-passive struggle is the knowledge that some tasks bear no need for blame assignment:

The action was prevented by poor weather.

Although this is not written in accordance with the Army Writing Style, the meaning of this sentences remain unchanged by moving it into the active voice:

Poor weather prevented the action.

While it is a shorter sentence (notably by two words) the average person would not be able to distinguish the difference between these sentences.

Parting Thought

Inasmuch, some judgment about style remains with the author of any Army document. Writing is one of the few items that we are judged for in our own absence. An email is read without the context that expression can provide, and text messages are similarly received. It is crucial to be clear and concise as the Army describes, yet, in assigning blame, we tend to tread in some relatively controversial, if not dangerous, waters. 

Alexander Boroff is an active duty Army Major serving as an Army Joint Chiefs of Staff Intern on the Army Staff in the G-3-5-7. 

Opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.