As a private in basic training, I learned the Army Values. We were issued a plastic card, on which they were listed: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage. For any inspection, until I left the military as a sergeant, that card was a required item.

The US army still teaches the Army Values to every soldier. It’s a cheesy, motivational-speaker-esque acronym that spells “LDRSHIP”. But it is also useful for teaching new troops, many of whom (myself included) enter the military with little direction or understanding of what soldiering requires.

The Army Values can be learned in any walk of life. Even running for the presidency. But one such value, integrity, seems to have escaped one Republican candidate altogether.

Ben Carson’s personal story is in question, and rightly so. There was the Popeye’s stick-up in Baltimore that likely never happened, according to Baltimore police. The snake oil company Carson claimed he never shilled for, despite readily availably video evidence of Carson schilling for snake oil. The brutally violent attacks he committed during his childhood that no-one who grew up with him can seem to remember. And, of course, a claim that he was offered a “scholarship” to the United States Military Academy by General William Westmoreland, but turned it down to go to Yale.

Within that last claim, about West Point, a number of problems exist. First, the academy doesn’t offer scholarships per se.

“There is no such thing as being ‘offered a full scholarship’ at West Point,” recalls Frederick Wellman, a West Point alumnus who served for 22 years, obtained a graduate degree from Harvard University and now leads ScoutComms, an agency advocating for veterans. “You apply. You get in. Meeting a general doesn’t get you in.”

Cadets attend West Point free of cost, and even receive a small stipend. Upon graduation, they incur a five-year active duty service obligation.

West Point responded to inquiries regarding Carson’s claim by noting that it had no record of Carson applying – which would have been required for him to be accepted with costs covered. On Friday, however, Carson told the New York Times the claim was true enough, because he had been told “with a record like yours we could easily get you a scholarship to West Point”.

Wellman isn’t buying it: “Saying ‘Well, it’s no big deal because he could have gotten in and went to Yale’ is like me saying ‘I was offered a Navy Seal badge but I went to Ranger School.’ Yes. I did go to Ranger School and earn my tab, but those are different things.”

Wellman’s critiques get to the crux of the problem I and many of my fellow veterans have with Carson and his “Brian Williams problem”. As a former soldier, I’m not particularly offended, just as I was never particularly offended by the NBC news anchor’s false claims of martial glory in Iraq. I don’t think Carson’s exaggeration devalues military service, and I don’t think he is claiming a service academy pedigree he doesn’t deserve.

I object because military service cemented integrity in my own values and Ben Carson is dishonest.

How does Carson plan, as president, to command the respect, much less the actions, of uniformed service members when it appears a healthy portion of his biography is utterly fabricated? Pressed on his West Point claims by CNN, he made a frustrated and laughable claim: that the media has scrutinized him more than it has President Obama or the Clintons. A guy with so little integrity, so little personal courage, has no business receiving the proverbial 3am phone call.

The bigger problem here, though, is one I mentioned earlier. You don’t have to be a soldier or be issued an Army Values card to understand that integrity is an important virtue, particularly for someone who is planning to run our country and lead the free world. Every person, particularly every voter, holds this value.

We’ve had presidents who weren’t particularly bright or very good at the job. But Nixon resigned in disgrace, due to his lack of integrity. For a lie that had nothing to do with the presidency, Clinton faced impeachment.

Given the challenges of the Oval Office, now is probably a good time for Carson to agree with the rest of America. The presidency is not a position he should hold.