Growing Army Professionals: Closing the Values Gap

[We will] foster continued commitment to the Army Profession, a noble and selfless callingfounded on the bedrock of trust.-U.S. Army Gen. Raymond T. OdiernoAs the U.S. Army transitions from the conflicts of the last fifteen years to a more home-station-focused effort on training and readiness, it has spent intellectual and developmental energy on defining its future as a profession vice a bureaucracy. In Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 1, Army Profession, Army leadership has established a sound framework for a professional force dedicated to protecting the nation that has been entrusted to its care.Unfortunately, while the Army profession has been studied, described, and written about, a transition in culture has been taking place within the very core of the Army profession. With changes to social and cultural values in the last decade, the Army now has a gap between the norms of the profession that ADRP 1 seeks to foster and the core values of its newest soldiers.1 Those soldiers often do not identify with the seven Army Values that are the foundation of honorable service as understood by the Army. values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage resonate quite differently now with soldiers from a culture that has evolved toward relativism focused on the circumstances of the moment.2How, then, do we close the gap between the Army profession and the younger soldiers that increasingly comprise the profession itself? Our battalion successfully accomplished this through a unique training concept that reinforced training on the Army Values with real-world vignettes presented at historical venues that demonstrated what happened when those values were applied correctly and incorrectly.An Essential Discussion: Can Values Be Taught?Before addressing how to bridge the gap between societal values and the Army Values, it is important to ask the question of whether values can be taught.Values and moral education are typically seen in a spiritual education aspect, but this does not adequately describe their purpose; values transcend faith. For example, the United Nations maintains a set of universal core values.3 And, businesses such as Delta Airlines establish core values.4 Army, then, with the Army Values, is not unique in its conviction that values can, and should be taught.In a study conducted in the 1980s, William H. Bruening proposed that the question is not whether values can or cannot be taught, but how to align the form of instruction with the particular content. Bruening writes, The form, then, must allow the students to freely choose his/her values and accept the consequences for the choices teachers of courses in moral education mustthen be viable role models for the students5 He goes on to establish that values cannot be directly taught but can be learned indirectly through instruction that is relevant and gives students a choice. Based on Bruening's conclusion, the question is not whether values can be taught to new soldiers, but what method is effective for bridging the values gap between them and the Army profession.More Than a Valid Concern: Challenges from the TopDuring the Pre-Command Course, board-selected officers and command sergeants major at the battalion and brigade levels attend sessions in which they receive insights and guidance from Army senior leaders. One such session was provided by then Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and then Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond F. Chandler in April 2013. Having heard disturbing statistics on incident trends across the Army from the provost marshal of the Army, Chandler challenged the assembled leadership: We need your help. Our Initial Entry Training is not sufficient ... to enculturate our soldiers to the Army Values. That job now falls to you commanders and command sergeants major to figure out innovative ways to ingrain our soldiers to the values that drive our Army6 sergeant major of the Army's challenge resonated through the crowd, and, as an incoming battalion commander, I took that challenge seriously. …