Army: A Profession of Arms

What is a profession? First and foremost let’s look at how we can define a profession from a general point. A profession is an occupation requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation. Profession doesn’t mean only to be perfectly prepared on the basis of theoretical aspects, but to meet the strict criteria as well. A good professional should be a leader and leadership means solving problems. Leaders can be assessed according to the amount of resolved problems. Everybody has a tendency to be successful, in trying this; a successful leader has to be confident in his decisions. It follows from that, that generally we can consider the leader as an expert, a matured personality, somebody who meets the high moral values.

In the modern times, the profession of arms became similar to other professions such as lawyers, or economic experts. Preparation of professional soldiers is specialized on getting special knowledge and skills, which aren’t common in the civilian world and which can’t be gained by short training. It’s one of the features which set a long-ago warrior apart from a modern professional soldier. He becomes the expert in a very specific, socially required activity, which is, simply said, management of violence. The nature of the professional soldier’s training focuses on getting skills applicable in ensuring the safety of his country, which means monopolizing his profession.

Another feature of a professional soldier of is his subordination to politicians. He acts like an expert and skilled counselor. The decision is made by a politician, but the application of that decision is run by the officer staff. Professional soldiers are closely connected with service to the state. Every soldier of...

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...urs a day. It’s a fulltime engagement. When a command is issued, you have to respond immediately at any time, there is no time to take long considerations, just mind the order. It follows from that that military personnel must adhere to high standards of discipline. In most cases, observance of discipline is one of the basic prerequisites for the successful execution of the mission and order fulfillment.

Last of all, as you might have noticed from the above information the profession of arms certainly is a very demanding profession that requires engaging the whole person. The entire process of reaching the level of a professional isn’t an easy way in terms of armed forces. It requires determination, willpower, the right motivation, physical and psychological resiliency.

Bbliography

TRADOC. "The Profession of Arms." An Army White Paper, December 8, 2010.