Posted on May 8, 2015
CPT Hhc Company Commander
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I have read hundreds of posts on RallyPoint, and seen many more among Army Times and even general discussions.

I grew up around WW2 Airborne NCOs, as I was a reenactor prior to joining the military. These veterans taught me a lot abut how to take care of my troops and what a good Soldier/medic/NCO/officer would do to help his fellow Soldiers. They helped to instill a sense of pride in everything I did and taught me the Core Values before I knew them as the Core Values.

Fast forward to today: In 7 years in the Army, we have taken away unit patches, changed dress uniforms, changed PT uniforms (twice, plus variations), changed headgear (at least once), talked about getting rid of branch insignia, changed our combat uniforms (kinda twice...when I started, we still had some of the BDUs in our ranks).

I've also talked at length with some of my Soldiers, my leadership, and others. The military has changed as well. A few of these changes seem to indicate a loss of identity and pride in being a Soldier. USAWTFM posted recently about a Soldier posting about "it's a good day to go sell drugs" and posting pictures of marijuana on his Facebook page. There are stories of Soldiers ducking Retreat and boasting about it, people complaining of under-involved leadership, the suicide problem in the military. To me, I wonder how much of this is a loss of esprit de corps, discipline, and the "Band of Brothers" that made things possible.

Some of these seem to indicate to me a need to return to the traditions of the Army to help inspire confidence and pride in being a piece of history. I cannot speak outside of the Army, but the Marines do seem to maintain that tradition. How do we get back to basics, like taking care of Soldiers? Bringing together the "military Family"? Helping people to understand pride in the uniform and the significance of all of the awards, patches, and traditions?

Can the return to tradition help? It seems that we have a lot of problems that can be fixed by changing the mentality of the military to the "way it was", rather than focusing on trivialities like what kind of PT uniform, what kind of headgear, and changing our distinctive unit insignias.

Thanks in advance for the discussion. I'd love to hear the input from others. There are many more things I could add, but I want to hear from others. (Those that know me, know that I tend to "type a response to death"...tryin' to fix that).
v/r,
CPT Butler
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CPL Pappy Groves
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I was called "Old Fashioned" when I was 9 years old! So Yes, I agree that the Military needs to stop being used as a Social Experiment Group for Polititions, and go back to the Traditions that made our Army Strong!
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MSG Senior Joint Operations Manager,
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Sir,
Great topic of discussion! First I think when you break it down to the simplest level there is only two thing that separates units from each other regardless of their mission and that is standards and discipline.
Units and building that "Band of Brothers" is accomplished by sharing hardships which can be created by frequent and realistic training. Crawl, Walk, Run. Give right and left limits allow Soldiers, NCOs, Officers to make mistakes and learn and recover from them.
Make these things important, talk about ethical decisions making processes, history, values, things that are important to you will reflect in the way that you lead, pride in unit, pride in self come through negotiation of hard obstacles.
Focus on the tradition of being a standard bearer for all that we do. Make the on the spot corrections and fix inappropriate behavior.

Read "The Generals" talks about some of these issues after WWI and during WWII.
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SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S.
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I'm pretty sure when the uniform was changed from the Lorica hamata to the Lorica segmentata, Titus Pullo turned to Lucius Vorenus and said..
"Gooor, there goes the Legion"!
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