I've come to rely on THE WEEKLY STANDARD for principled arguments regarding the issues of our time. However, Albert Pyle's treatment of Admiral Jeremy Boorda's death ("Naval Justice," June 3) perplexes me. Pyle conjures up and praises a Navy where the "real sailors. . . . understood" Boorda's suicide as the honorable thing to do. Even if Pyle had some evidence that Navy enlisted men all harbor this samurai mentality, why would he write a near-endorsement of suicide?
The shocking thing about Boorda's death is not that he took his own life -- this is tragic, but not shocking -- but that official Washington did not treat it as a suicide. From the eulogies at Boorda's memorial service to the commencement speech Gen. John Shalikashvili gave at the Naval Academy, one would have thought that Boorda had expired in his sleep or had been killed by a crazy seaman (which, in a real sense, he was).
In an earlier age, there was a stigma attached to suicide. Treating suicide with benign indifference is a most dangerous development. Pyle's article, acknowledging Boorda's suicide but virtually declaring it "honorable," goes even further down the path of this madness.
NICHOLAS DUJMOVIC, STERLING, VA