Management

Running head: HOW MY POSITION INFLUENCES VALUES

How my Position as a Military Leader Influences the Values of Our Young Soldiers

Abstract

The Kirkpatrick Signature Series is the first college level course I have taken in over 20 years. The main topic being; what is the proper role for the citizen or the individual in society?

During the course, I compared my involvement with soldiers and how, through direct or indirect measures, I influence their values. I used the two required textbooks and the internet to attempt to define what American values are, than I used military text for comparison. The project I chose was volunteering to be the course manager over a Basic Soldier Orienteering Course (BSOC) where I could identify civilians at the beginning level of their military career and attempt define their views of American values.

The course has brought me to the conclusion that values are not constant. Although the military trains and maintains their seven core values, there is no such list when it comes to the American people. American values are ever changing and society is changing with them. We as the people need to set a good example for our young in order to establish and maintain a value system that is conducive to the American life.

How my position as a military leader influences the values of our young soldiers.

The Kirkpatrick Signature Series has allowed us to examine ideas from our Western tradition and values; and gave us thought provoking questions about values, both American and Army, and their importance in the workplace, and in daily life. The site for my project was Camp Ashland. I am employed by the Nebraska Army National Guard as a Quality Assurance Officer. Our academy serves the nation with multiple schools for soldiers from the beginning to advanced level.

I chose this topic because, as a military leader, I believe that I have a direct influence over the actions of soldiers while they are here and hopefully, as they continue with their military and civilian careers. My position allows me to be directly involved with the training of soldiers from their initial introduction into the military to the final chapter in their careers. I have been in the Army for 25 years and have served in the training field for over half of that time.

As I begin to define the Army values, it would only be fitting to give a bit of history behind them. For the past 30 years many of the brightest and best leaders in the Army, from the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel to the individual Army service schools, have been engaged in the trying task of adequately describing Army values, ethics, and leadership doctrine. During that period, virtually every Chief of Staff of the Army, 11 in all, provided guidance, directly or indirectly, to those who wrote field manuals, training circulars, or lesson plans on the subjects of professional ethics and leadership. From 1968 to 1998, the list of Army values underwent four major revisions, expanding from three to seven in number, and the definition of leadership went from an art to a process, to an essential element of combat power, then back to a process.

The seven Army values of today can be remembered by the acronym LDRSHIP. If you were to go to any soldier today, they would be able to recite for you the seven Army values. They are as defined by the Field Manual FM 22-100 Army Leadership:

Loyalty: Loyalty is the faithful adherence to a person, unit, or the Army. It is the thread that binds our actions together and causes us to support each other, our superiors, our family, and our country.

Duty: Duty is the legal or moral obligation to accomplish all assigned or implied tasks to the fullest of your ability. Every solider must do what needs to be done without having to be told to do it.

Respect: Respect is treating others with consideration and honor. It is the ability to accept and value other individuals.

Selfless Service: Selfless service is placing your duty before your personal desires. It is the ability to endure severe hardships for love of fellow soldiers and our country.

Honor: Honor is living up to the Army Values. It starts with being honest with one's self and being truthful and sincere in all of our actions.

Integrity: Integrity means to firmly adhere to a code of moral and ethical principles. Every soldier must possess high personal moral standards and be honest in word and deed.

Personal Courage: Physical courage is overcoming fears of bodily harm while performing your duty. Moral courage is overcoming fears of other than bodily harm while doing what is right, even if it is unpopular.

To not confuse or understate values defined are your attitudes about the worth of people, concepts, and other things. Civilians enter the Army with their own values, developed in childhood and nurtured through experience. Americans are shaped by what they have seen, what they have learned, and whom they have met. However, when soldiers take the oath, they enter an institution guided by Army values. These are more than a system of rules. These values tell you what you need to be, every day, in every action you take. Army values form the very identity of the Army, the solid rock upon which everything else stands, especially in combat. They are the glue that binds together the members this noble profession. As a result, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. Army values are nonnegotiable: they apply to everyone and in every situation throughout the Army.

It would be nice if American values were as easy to define, as are the Army values. As we examined Chapter 6, I searched through the history and tried to come up with a list as significant or easy to understand as the Army has produced. Knowing that values are beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment of for or against something, I was not able to come up with a comprehensive list. If you asked people what are American values, you might get some blank stares, or a statement of some basic beliefs. The question may seem simple, but the answer is quite complex. In our society being as diverse as we are, I got a multitude of answers. The American culture is enriched by the values and belief systems of virtually every part of the world. As put by Devin, "Ð'...American values are based upon a synthesis of religion and practical traditions." (Devine 2004, pg 42) Consequently, I found it impossible to produce a comprehensive list. I do have the three values introduced with the Declaration of