Information Paper the Profession of Arms

THE PROFESSION OF ARMS

Introduction

        The Profession of Arms begins with this question: Why do we need a campaign to understand the Profession of Arms and the Profession Soldiers? It means we face the time when we need to renew our understanding of our profession. To solve this challenge, TRADOC has leaded a review of the Army Profession including three questions: 1.What does it mean for the Army to be a Profession of Arms? 2. What does it mean to be a professional Soldier? 3. After nine years of war, how are we as individual professionals and as a profession meeting these aspirations? This White Paper: The Profession of Arms addresses diverse factors as a variety of aspects and provides the ways to be a profession.

Section 01 - The Army as a Profession of Arms

What does it mean to be a Profession and Professionals? Profession produces uniquely expert work such as Medicine, Theology, Law, and the Military that are related to “social trustee”. And Professionals require years of study, practice and a deep moral obligation and need to continuously develop expertise for the best interests of society. For example, The Military Profession must provide the security for society. For this reason, we have to refine our understanding of the Army as a Profession of Arms. And to maintain the Army as a Profession of Arms, Army leaders at all levels must be immersed in the environment and culture of the profession of arms in their career and led and inspired nu exemplary role models to become experts. There are the key attributes of our Profession of Arms: Expertise, Trust, Development, Values and Service. Also, we can extend the framework of the Profession of Arms to better understand the Army’s professional expertise into four fields: Military-Technical Expertise, Human Development Expertise, Moral-Ethical Expertise and Political-Cultural Expertise. Furthermore, to maximize the Army Profession, we need to actually practice it and make the balancing role of the Profession’s leaders.

Section 02 - The Army’s Professional Culture

        The Army culture is defined as a system of shared attitudes, values, and practices and it can be divided by three levels: Artifacts, Espoused Beliefs and Values, and Basic Underlying Assumptions. Artifacts lie at the surface of culture and they include all the tangible phenomena that Soldiers see, hear, and feel when operating in an Army unit. Espoused Beliefs and Values are what the Army says is important by its published doctrines, regulations, and other policy statements. Last, Basic Underlying Assumptions are the deepest level of culture. And leaders must focus on three major cultural dimensions in order to manage the cultural changes.