The way the Marines take care of their business is a refreshing tonic in an age where few are held accountable for their actions.

I wrote a few days ago about the movie, “Taking Chance” that tells the meticulous care and honor the Marines give to their fallen. Here is another story about how the Marines take responsibility for their own mistakes.

Peggy Noonan wrote a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal about the conclusions by a Marine investigation into a terrible tragedy last December when a pilot crashed into a San Diego neighborhood killing three people. Here is part of her account:

It’s Dec. 8, 2008, 11:11 a.m., and a young Marine pilot takes off from an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, on a routine training flight. The carrier is maybe 90 miles southwest of San Diego. Lt. Dan Neubauer is flying an F/A-18 Hornet. Minutes into the flight, he notices low oil pressure in one of the two engines. He shuts it down. Then the light shows low fuel for the other engine. He’s talking to air traffic control and given options and suggestions on where to make an emergency landing. He can go to the naval air station at North Island, the route to which takes him over San Diego Bay, or he can go to the Marine air station at Miramar, with which he is more familiar, but which takes him over heavily populated land. He goes for Miramar. The second engine flames out. About three miles from the runway, the electrical system dies. Lt. Neubauer tries to aim the jet toward a canyon, and ejects at what all seem to agree is the last possible moment.

The jet crashed nose down in the University City neighborhood of San Diego, hitting two homes and damaging three. Four people, all members of a Korean immigrant family, were killed—36-year-old Youngmi Lee; her daughters, Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months, and her 60-year-old mother, Seokim Kim.

The Marines launched an investigation—of themselves. This Wednesday the results were announced.

They could not have been tougher, or more damning. The crash, said Maj. Gen. Randolph Alles, the assistant wing commander for the Third Marine Aircraft Wing, was “clearly avoidable,” the result of “a chain of wrong decisions.” Mechanics had known since July of a glitch in the jet’s fuel-transfer system; the Hornet should have been removed from service and fixed, and was not. The young pilot failed to read the safety checklist. He relied on guidance from Marines at Miramar who did not have complete knowledge or understanding of his situation. He should have been ordered to land at North Island. He took an unusual approach to Miramar, taking a long left loop instead of a shorter turn to the right, which ate up time and fuel.

Twelve Marines were disciplined; four senior officers, including the squadron commander, were removed from duty. Their military careers are, essentially, over. The pilot is grounded while a board reviews his future.

Noonan quotes one young Naval aviator’s reaction to the judgments. Asking the same question many of us might he says, “He found himself wondering if the Marines had been “too hard on themselves.” “But they are, after all, Marines.”

They are after all, Marines. That speaks to a high code of conduct that knows we are accountable for our actions. This applies to all of us–not just the Marines.

Galatians 6:7 tells us, “Do not be decieved, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows that he will also reap.”

Our actions have consequences. Paul goes on to say, ” For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life.” (verse 8).

It is a spiritual law that creates automatic accountability in the deepest matters of life. We cannot escape its gravitational inevitability. The sooner we learn it the better quality of life we can achieve for ourselves and with others.

Part of my job is to help people deal with the fruit of their actions. One of the first steps in patching up a broken life is accepting personal responsiblity and accountability for who we are and where we are. It is part of growing up and putting on the “biggee boy pants”. It is moving beyond the whining, blaming and passing the blame game.

Examine yourself of this point this weekend. After all, you’re a Christian.