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Army Profession Research Paper

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Trust. The Key to the Army Profession The U.S. military exists solely for the purpose to fight and win our nation's wars, a task which largely involves supporting the country's political, constitutional, and civil objectives on a global scale. Therefore, the relationship between the Army and the citizens it protects is paramount not just to the successful execution of military operations, but the strategic defensible goals of the nation. To foster such a relationship and develop the Army as an organization centered on professionalism and the highest degree of ethics, the Army developed ADRP 1: The Army Profession. ADRP 1, Chapter 3, is the most important trait with respect to the duty positions and responsibilities of a captain in the US …show more content…

First, ADRP 1 defines five (5) essential characteristics of the Army profession: (1) Trust, (2) Military Expertise, (3) Honorable Service, (4) Esprit de Corps, and (5) Stewardship of the Profession (U.S. Department of the Army, 2013). Of the five characteristics, trust serves as the core link between the Army the citizens that it serves. Without trust, the other tenants of the Army profession will eventually fail. Specifically, the ADRP describes two (2) types of trust: (1) Internal and (2) External. Internal trust is responsible for the relationships of the individuals within the Army; it is essential for the conduct of good order and discipline as internal trust ensures that subordinates and trust their leaders to be fair and leaders and trust their subordinates will follow legal orders. As a Captain in the Army, it is essential that one can build their organization on a …show more content…

In The Silent Crisis, author Gregory Foster argues that prolonged conflicts over the last three decades have led to a moral and ethical breakdown in Army professionalism resulting in widespread violence, sexual assault, and other heinous crimes. The obvious departure from the Army’s established values results in a divisive civilian-military relationship in which the public is unable to trust that members of the Army will refrain from use of excessive force or conducting immoral acts. In such situations, the Army can still be experts of their trade, maintain esprit de corps, and be stewards of the profession, but without trust the Army will quickly lose operational support and will eventually collapse or cease to exist as a service to the public which it now serves. Unfortunately, as the Army continues to wage it’s 15-year-old War on Terrorism and as personnel become wary of continuous deployments, moral and ethical dilemmas are becoming increasingly more commonplace in the news. Similarly, the sheer length of combat operations in the Middle East have led to an erosion of popular support which may have been at its height immediately following the events on 9/11. These variables combine to produce an environment where civilians are less likely to trust and support military

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