The Future of the Army Profession by Snider Matthews and Lloyd J. Matthews

             The Future of the Army Profession written by Don M. Snider and Lloyd J. Matthews is published by Mc-Grawl Hill, Boston in 2002. This book examines certain outcomes on Army Training and Leadership Developments as it uses comparable scenarios between the Army and other professions.  Military professionalism is also another deep issue tackled on this book as it relates certain uncertainties which threatens to relegate the Army to the level of just another government agency or bureaucracy with no bona fide professional status.

            The authors argumentative study is more of the contemporary discussion of Army as a subject.  Any search for opinions or contrasting viewpoints yields little fruit.  His work is really outstanding specially when we talk about Army professionalism. The Army’s bureaucratic nature outweighs and compromises its nature of profession. Putting into practice, it is considered to be true and of great importance specially on the viewpoint of the officers corps. Since most of the commanders in the Army considers behavior as natural and appropriate like the following: Understanding the officership of an Army where an individual finds their self worth and satisfaction in their contribution to their corresponding jobs, accepting Army as a profession by an individual and foreseeing himself to be involved in such noble profession, understanding the meaning of having a mutual relationship with people included in the army and having a mindset of his responsibility within the American Society and developing interpersonal relationship so as to serve as motivation to each other while working in that field and The freedom occasionally to fail with out fatal career consequences.

            By reading the book, the authors wanted to inculcate the readers about the importance of the seven Army values  that will really affect the success and failures of an individual or units  this field. In the books introduction the seven Army values are cited and later on discussed on the succeeding chapters:

            First is the understanding of Army officership  wherein the readers will be able to know the role of an officer in an Army profession and gives them a sense of self and develop confidence in choosing this field as their expertise.

            Second is An individual acceptance of the Army  profession’s ethic; in other words, aligning one’s personal concept of  duty with the professional ethic such that the future “walk” of the officer will match the moral “talk” of the  profession.

            The relationship between the army and the society is also included in the seven Army values since it reflects how the army goes hand in hand with the society in sustaining the needs and services needed to motivate the members of that profession.

            Fourth is the freedom occasionally to fail with out fatal career consequences.

            Having a chosen career inside the Army profession gives professional satisfaction to every member of the Army since it has opportunities to upgrade the positions of every people granted that they possess necessary qualities that promotes them to a higher position.

            Sixth is pervasiveness of absolute “candor” as the cultural norm with  all Army leaders at all levels at all times in interpersonal relations and in official reports and communications. Since communication is always open in this profession and this paves way to a better relationship among members and units.

            Lastly is to Create a new Joint Warfare Profession with full authority over its own internal jurisdictions for the creation and adaptation of the profession’s expert knowledge, and for the development and utilization of joint professionals. All professions, if they survive over time, maintain these two internal jurisdictions, including America’s current war fighting professions: army, maritime, and air-space.  (As stated in the introduction of the book Matthews & Snider 2002, pp.3-18)

            From the seven Army values stated above a better understanding of the Army profession is given at a glance on the introduction since the author’s main point of view is to give readers the notion about the professionalism that should be built out on every individual which is in line with Army as a profession. this is indeed a book which talks about the complexities of being involve in the army and for scholars who wants to seek deeper insight in this field.

            Professionalism and the benefits of developing it into one’s self is also tackled in the book where its relevance to management of bureaucracies when it comes to difference in a person’s identity, being a warrior, leading with  character and serving the country is given enough explanation so that the readers will gain more knowledge about Army as a profession. There are also times when the writers stretches their viewpoints (since they are also of great knowledge when it comes to this profession), about proposals that will change some cases and services in the Army.

            This book serves as an awakening for people involve in Army as a profession. sinc there are certain developments that were cited in the book which will further improve army not only in the line of expertise but also when it comes to relating it with the economy, society and other influencing factors that builds trust and mutual relationship in serving people.

Work Cited

Matthews, Lloyd J and Snider, Don M. (2002). The future of the Army profession.  McGraw-Hill, Boston