Partnership enhances resilience, understanding of ethics, profession

By Lisa FerdinandoJanuary 22, 2015

Partnership enhances resilience, understanding of ethics, profession
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Jan. 20, 2015) -- At the core of the Army is a resilient professional who lives by Army ethics, said the director of the Army Resiliency Directorate, G1.

The Army is made up of Soldiers from diverse backgrounds and diverse sets of values, and it is important to set a baseline to help them understand the Army's guiding principles, said Sharyn J. Saunders, director of the Army Resiliency Directorate.

"One thing we all are united under is that we are all part of this Army team -- and within this Army team, we have a set of standards and we hold ourselves accountable to values," she said.

The most important aspect when you look at the Army standards as it relates to resiliency is dignity and respect, and treating everyone -- including yourself -- with dignity and respect, Saunders said.

"We are trying to get our arms around acts of indiscipline and negative behaviors, so that we can promote positive behaviors and positive efforts across our force," she said.

To accomplish that goal, she said, members need to ensure they are "interacting positively with each other and treating each other with dignity and respect and then maintaining our Army standards and our Army values," all key to developing and sustaining a Ready and Resilient Army, she said.

The Army requires Soldiers, their family members and Army civilians to have sustained personal readiness -- key to the Army's Ready and Resilient effort. These Army professionals need to be physically, emotionally and psychologically strong to have optimized performance and achieve that personal readiness.

Ready and Resilient is partnering with the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic, or CAPE, on further collaboration on promoting and enhancing what it means to be a ready and resilient professional.

CAPE PERSPECTIVE

The partnership between R2 and CAPE is a way to enhance understanding on what it means to be an Army professional, said Col. John Vermeesch, CAPE deputy director.

"The two concepts of becoming a more resilient Army, comprised of more resilient people, goes very much hand-in-hand with being a professional Army that adheres to an ethic," Vermeesch said.

The Army Doctrine Reference Publication 1 on "The Army Profession" does not have a "clearly articulated statement of the Army's ethic," Vermeesch said.

While the Army has an ethic and it has evolved over time, and it is "deeply embedded in Army culture," a precise definition of it has not been established, Vermeesch said.

"It's comprised of values and beliefs, creeds and all those kinds of things that we talk about and hear about routinely but nowhere along the way have we articulated exactly what the ethic is," Vermeesch said.

All the Army's problems would be eliminated if all Army members viewed themselves as professionals and members of a profession that had an ethic, and they all understood and lived by the ethic in every aspect of their lives, Vermeesch said.

"Professions behave and have certain things they do that entitle them to be called a profession," said Sgt. Maj. David Stewart of CAPE.

The classic definition of a profession is that it has an ethical code that members follow, Stewart said. Part of the Army's ethics is that the institution "speaks with one voice that helps solidify the message," Stewart said.

"In inculcating and understanding this idea of the profession, understanding who we are as a profession and as professionals, things like sexual assault and sexual harassment would be abhorrent," Stewart said.

Resilient people treat themselves and each other with dignity and respect, and promote positive behavior. By acting in a positive manner, Soldiers and leaders promote a more ethical Army.

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Related Links:

Center for the Army Profession and Ethic

Army News Service

Army.mil: Inside the Army News

Army.mil: Ready and Resilient

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