What Is the US Military Code of Conduct? Articles and Enforcement

The U.S. Military Code of Conduct is a set of six articles that tells American service members how to behave in combat and, above all, in captivity. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued it as Executive Order 10631 on August 17, 1955, and every branch of the armed forces has followed it since.¹ The Code itself is not a criminal statute, but its directives can be enforced through the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Why the Code Exists

The Code was written in response to what happened to American prisoners during the Korean War. Roughly 7,000 U.S. service members were held by Chinese and North Korean forces, and an estimated 30 percent collaborated with their captors at some level. Twenty-one refused repatriation when the war ended. Many of those prisoners had faced psychological manipulation, forced confessions, and indoctrination with no framework for how to resist. A presidential advisory committee recommended clear, memorable guidelines every service member could internalize before deployment, and Eisenhower signed the resulting order in 1955.² President Carter updated the text in 1977 through Executive Order 12017, revising Article V and replacing gendered wording like “my men” with phrasing such as “the members of my command.”³

The Six Articles

The articles are written in the first person so a service member can recite them from memory. Each addresses a specific pressure someone in combat or captivity might face.

Article I: Loyalty and Willingness to Sacrifice

The first article affirms loyalty to the United States and a willingness to give one’s life in its defense. It sets the mental baseline for everything that follows. A service member who has already accepted the possibility of death is better positioned to withstand the pressures a captor will apply.¹

Article II: Never Surrender Voluntarily

Article II prohibits voluntary surrender while the means to resist remain. Commanders may not surrender the people under them while those people can still fight. The word “voluntary” matters. The Code does not require suicidal resistance; it draws the line at giving up when options remain.¹

Article III: Resist and Escape

A captured service member has a duty to keep resisting, to try to escape, and to help others escape. Article III also forbids accepting parole or special favors from the enemy. Small concessions create leverage that captors can use to extract larger ones, a pattern the Korean War experience demonstrated.¹

Article IV: Solidarity Among Prisoners

Inside a prison camp, prisoners must keep faith with one another and take no action that could harm fellow captives. The senior person present takes charge, and everyone else follows lawful orders. That internal chain of command mirrors what the Third Geneva Convention requires: the senior officer becomes the camp’s representative, with seniority set by rank and then by length of service.¹ Keeping a command structure alive prevents captors from isolating individuals and playing prisoners against each other.

Article V: What You Tell the Enemy

Article V is the article most people recognize. When questioned, a prisoner of war is required to give only four things: name, rank, service number, and date of birth. Beyond that, the service member must evade further questions to the best of their ability and never make oral or written statements disloyal to the United States or harmful to its allies.¹

This tracks Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention, which binds a POW to give only surname, first names, rank, date of birth, and service number, and which prohibits captors from using physical or mental torture, threats, or disadvantages to extract more.⁴ International law protects the right to stay silent; the Code makes staying silent a duty.

Article VI: Personal Accountability

The closing article affirms responsibility for one’s own actions and dedication to the principles that made the country free. Captivity does not erase personal accountability. The choices a prisoner makes are still their own.¹

Who Has to Follow It

The Code applies to every member of the U.S. Armed Forces, across all branches and all ranks. Executive Order 10631 states that all members of the Armed Forces “are expected to measure up to the standards embodied in this Code of Conduct while in combat or in captivity.”¹ Its language focuses on combat and captivity, but the underlying values shape everyday military culture too.

Department of Defense civilians and contractors working alongside the military have their own ethical and contractual obligations, but the Code itself is a directive for uniformed service members.

How Service Members Are Trained on It

Reciting the six articles is not the same as living them under pressure, and the Department of Defense requires Code of Conduct training at three tiers based on likelihood of capture.

Level A is the baseline, given to every service member during initial entry training. It covers the text of the articles and what they mean.
Level B is required for personnel at moderate risk of capture, including ground combat units and security forces near the front lines.
Level C is the most intensive tier, required for those at significant or high risk. It typically covers combat aircrews, special operations forces, and military attachés.

Level C is the tier most people mean when they refer to SERE — Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Combatant commanders identify which units qualify as high-risk in their area of operations, but the roster usually includes Navy special warfare personnel, Army Special Forces and Rangers, Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance, Air Force Special Tactics, and psychological operations units.⁵ SERE schools put students through realistic simulated captivity, drilling survival, evasion, and interrogation resistance grounded in the Code.

How the Code Is Enforced

The Code is an executive order, not a criminal statute. There is no UCMJ article titled “violation of the Code of Conduct” with a fixed punishment. Enforcement runs through existing punitive articles that reach the same conduct.

The most broadly applicable is UCMJ Article 92, which makes it a court-martial offense to violate or fail to obey a lawful general order or regulation. Because the Code was issued as an executive order binding on all service members, failing to follow it can be charged under Article 92. Conduct that does not fit a specific provision may fall under Article 134, the General Article, which covers disorders and neglects that prejudice good order and discipline or bring discredit upon the armed forces.⁶

In practice, the military weighs alleged violations in context. A service member who broke under severe torture is treated very differently from one who volunteered information freely. The Code sets the standard, and the UCMJ supplies the mechanism when someone falls short of it without justification.

1
National Archives. Executive Order 10631 – Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces of the United States
2
The American Presidency Project. Presidential Statement Upon Signing Order Prescribing a Code of Conduct for Members of the Armed Forces While in Combat or Captivity
3
The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 12017 – American Prisoners of War
4
International Committee of the Red Cross. Geneva Convention (III) on Prisoners of War, 1949 – Article 17
5
Department of Defense. DoD Instruction 1300.21 – Code of Conduct (CoC) Training and Education
6
Judge Advocate General’s School. Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)