Enforcing Standards and Discipline in the United States Army Capstone Project

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The United States Army has a history of instilling and enforcing discipline within its ranks. However, with every passing year come changes in the way society thinks and acts. New social values are created and fostered, and leaders in the U.S. Army must address these changes in order to maintain continuity of standards and discipline from one generation to the next (Wardynski). Thus, as the new generation of soldiers enters the United States Army, new challenges await leadership. The evolving world of social media is just one of the challenges that require leaders to be proactive in their approach to army standards and its enforcement. Soldiers have access to the internet in a deployed environment and use this platform in positive ways but also use social media in ways that bring harm to the Army values and heritage. Leaders need to walk a fine line between the soldiers rights to privacy and operational security.

In order to lead effectively, understanding of the new generation’s needs and expectations has to be considered at the same time that the Army’s own standards and expectations are communicated to new soldiers. The Army cannot forego one while observing only the other and vice versa. The Army has to maintain its standards and discipline but unless it understands the obstacles that prevent soldiers from knowing what it means to be a professional, the vision the Army has for itself, the standards it relies upon, and the discipline it needs to thrive will be lacking—as is currently the case (Allen, 2012). This essay will discuss the challenges and opportunities Army leaders face and also how leaders must maintain discipline in their ranks.

Statement of the Problem

The problem that is faced by leaders in the Army today is that they see new soldiers coming out of basic training without any confidence or discipline (Frost, 2018). To that end, Frost (2018) states that a new Basic Combat Training (BCT) program has been developed that is designed to reinforce discipline and build the new soldier’s confidence. Frost (2018) indicates that the new BCT program fixes the defects in the old BCT program that were producing undisciplined and unconfident soldiers. However, there has been no study indicating what today’s Army leaders think of the new BCT program or what they believe the real issues are when it comes to instilling discipline in the new generation of soldiers. Thus, there is a need for a qualitative study that allows for the exploration of viewpoints among military leaders that can be compared with viewpoints of new soldiers so as to see how what the actual perspectives are like and how great the distance is between them—i.e., how much bridging needs to occur in order to get new soldiers aligned with leaders in the Army.

Research Questions and Strategy

The design for this study is to interview military leaders and new soldiers about their perspectives on discipline and standards.

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The aim is to see what they know, what they believe, where they want to be, and how they think they can best get there. It is assumed that leaders will have more perspective on this issue than new soldiers. However, by interviewing the new soldiers the objective is to gauge their attitudes on standards and discipline and to assess their willingness to be challenged, since the basis of the new BCT program is that new recruits will rise to the challenge when standards are raised and discipline training is doubled early on (Frost, 2018).

The research questions that this study asks are:

1) What do leaders in the Army…

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…(2012). The research indicates that past behavior is a good predictor of future performance and too many soldiers are being promoted who have poor quality records when it comes to past behavior.

Frost (2018) suggests that the way to fix the problem is to use the new Basic Combat Training program, which focuses more on instilling discipline in the early weeks of the program and less on basic skills. By focusing more on discipline, Frost (2018) argues that new recruits will be able to uphold higher standards of behavior. When leaders challenge the new recruits, the soldiers are more likely to rise to the challenge, so leaders should not be fearful of challenging soldiers during the training process. This is why Frost (2018) recommends the new BCT program over the old one.

Conclusion

In order to lead effectively, understanding of the new generation’s needs and expectations has to be considered at the same time that the Army’s own standards and expectations are communicated to new soldiers. The standards of the Army have been lowered in the past and this is a problem because the military in the coming years is going to need leaders and soldiers of high-quality moral fiber. Discipline is needed in the Army now more than ever before, and it is sorely lacking according to the research. This study aims to explore the perspectives of military leaders and soldiers to better understand what the problem is and how it can be addressed. The literature on the subject shows that declining standards and discipline is a major factor across the board and that if the military does not do something to address the issue the military will not be able to stand up to enemy combatants or rely on technological superiority alone. The literature indicates that more focus….....

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