How does ethical heterogeneity complicate multinational operations? The U.S. military is increasingly reliant on cooperation with interagency, interorganizational and international military forces. Multinational operations bring together actors who possess varying ethical foundations, training, and conceptions that inform their rules of engagement and ethical conduct on the battlefield. I explore the effects of these contrasting ethical narratives between international and American officers, drawing upon the survey results and findings of the Military Health Advisory Team IV. I propose a theory to interpret the ethically constituted stories of heterogeneous groups. This theory serves to improve individual understanding of one's deep ethical beliefs with the result that: (1) a soldier is better able to link her own deeply-held beliefs to the officially-held professional and international codes, and (2) more space for a dialogue amongst joint, multinational and interagency partners appears in which to improve ethical practices.

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