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Adultery retreat betrays Marines

After former Air Force 1st Lt. Kelly Flynn's strange bid to make her affair with a married enlisted man a poster-case for loosening military standards of behavior, the Clinton administration quietly ordered a ''review'' of military rules concerning adultery.

Last week, as the results of the kangaroo ''review'' became clear, the Marine Corps objected to a proposed lessening and, in some cases, elimination of penalties for adultery. Marine commanders believe such a change would undermine discipline in the ranks.

They are right, of course.

Clintonites at the Pentagon nonetheless impatiently declare themselves surprised by the Marines' opposition. Why can't the Marines lower themselves to the worst impulses of modern America? Because Marines &emdash; and other members of the Armed Services &emdash; have to perform at a much higher standard than the average leering schmo on the street.

''Our concern rests on the premise that you need trust and accountability in the battlefield,'' says Marine Corps spokesman Col. Stuart Wagner. ''If you can't trust a Marine next to you to remain faithful, (then) how can you trust him on the battlefield?''

Exactly. The purpose of a military force is not to make its members feel good on Saturday night. Its purpose is, when called, to fight and possibly die in defense of country. At its best, the military vocation is one in which people must function at a higher level than most of us civilians, because in the heat of battle anything that undermines absolute trust will get people killed.

Just because some small number of military people succumb to temptation &emdash; a natural occurrence in any very large group, because man is an imperfect creature &emdash; does not mean the whole of our nation's fighting forces should be expected to behave as badly. The Marine Corps could use some political reinforcements from Capitol Hill to stop the Clinton administration from dumbing down military morals.