Growing Military Professionalism across Generations

Abstract

The Army's expert knowledge can be broadly categorized into four capacities: military-technical, moral-ethical, political-cultural, and human development. Of the four, the human development capacity sets the Army apart as a profession. As officers enter, develop, lead, and eventually retire, they have a profound impact on the institution as a cohort. This impact stems from generational influences on the organization and its leadership. This article examines how generational differences help and hamper the human development capacity that the Army must have to socialize, train, educate, and develop the Army officer corps to be good stewards of the profession. Three generations of current Army leaders coexist at any given moment, bringing with them different formative experiences and views on professionalism. The procession of these three groups of people will profoundly shape the operation and legacy of the institution long after their respective tenures. The manner in which each group of leaders shapes the Army will have much to do with their own formative experiences rising through the ranks. In the halls of the Pentagon today, these generations are called, Generals, Bosnia/Kosovo Colonels, and Iraq/Afghanistan Captains and Majors. A closer look at these three populations reveals much about the formative experiences that shaped their professional view: Boomers. Born between 1946 and 1964, this group of around 77.3 million individuals came of age during a period of significant social and political transition.1 The generation itself straddles two distinctly different periods: the 1950s, when society was still deeply rooted in traditional values of stability and responsibility, and the 1960s and 1970s, a time of significant social and political turmoil in our society. From the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War, this generation witnessed and experienced the effects of the rebellious counterculture lashing back at authority. Within the officer corps, the Boomers make up most of the senior general officers, with the youngest of this generation reaching 30 years of service by 2012. While the oldest members of this cohort were commissioned during the Vietnam era, most of the Boomers' careers as officers started in the 1980s at the beginning of the Reagan administration's new military build-up. They experienced the post-Vietnam professionalization of the Army with large investments in new technology and equipment. As lieutenants and captains, they trained and prepared for the Soviet invasion through the Fulda Gap, only to see their adversary collapse without a shot fired. Instead of the Soviet armored columns, this generation of officers fought in the desert against Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf as senior captains and majors. Their careers continued as lieutenant colonels and colonels with some of the older members promoted to the general officer ranks during the periods of operations in Somalia and Kosovo and before 9/11. Generation X. Born between 1965 and 1980, this group of 46 million individuals is sometimes known as the MTV generation.2 While the Boomer generation came of age during a period of dramatic social change, Generation X came of age during a time of dramatic technological change. New innovations in technology such as faxes, copiers, and computers fundamentally changed the way people lived and worked. Within the officer corps, Generation X currently makes up most of the field grade officers with some of the older members starting to become general officers. Mostly commissioned after the Cold War, the Persian Gulf was the first testing ground for some of the older members while Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) became the norm, somewhat reluctantly, for the younger ones. Unlike the Boomers and other generations, this population of officers did not share a common experience of war in the traditional sense of having a monolithic adversary. While experiencing an increase in operational tempo, they were engaged in variety of peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian missions. …