Is the model of the Army as a military profession the best way to establish and promote an Army Ethic?

Good question sir. You bring up some great points, and I agree with some of them. Here's my take. We started with the Army values, something that I see a lot of civilian companies doing now a days. We were expected to uphold those values in both our professional and personal lives. Yes those lives are separate, but IMHO, they are one in the same like 2 sides of a coin. You can't split the coin in half. Heads or tails, everyone sees both sides.

There are few professions where your life depends on the people next to you 24/7. When deployed, you don't simply go home to your Q and no one cares what happens until they see you the next day. Civilian life affords you that "luxury". If you have to have that 24/7 dependence than I think the profession and the ethics should go hand in hand.

Yes in the no one on the outside cares about an affair and its really no one's business. suppose that affair was among hospital staff and it affected the work place and the individuals involved ability to focus and do their job? Not sure I'd want a doctor who just got caught cheating and facing a divorce and other stressors operating on me. Now suppose it was a company commander or 1SG about to be deployed. As you point out civilian or military the professionalism should be there to separate personal and professional life, we hope.

I have drank the cool-aid and I really buy into ADRP 1-0's latest revisions, though as I continue reading on the topic I find certain challenges. I agree with your conclusions sir. I studied ethics within a case study on "Black Hearts", I mentioned some of what you are alluding to here. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts:

In the book On Killing, Grossman writes, “it is only in this century that our physical and logistical capability to support combat has completely outstripped our psychological capacity to endure it.” There is a recognizable need for our mental and moral abilities to catch up with that of our current combat power. Preparing ourselves ethically takes training, just like we train for anything else. Soldiers cannot spur moral beliefs into just and righteous actions unless they have been equipped to do so. My friend, former professor, and expert in military ethics, Dr. Nathan Cartagena writes, ““An impoverished language produces impoverished thought, which produces ethically inadequate, non-virtuous action. To help soldiers cultivate and act from virtue, practitioners and theorists need to equip them with a richer, more precise, ethical language.” The Army, in its campaign to show the organization as an ethical profession, has failed to address the problem of fragmentation in today’s military. Fragmentation here means a division and isolation of one’s self between moral and professional domains. I believe the incident with first platoon is proof of this. Cartagena writes, “any model for moral development in the Army must take into account both the organic fragmentation of soldiers’ lives, and how combat and a posture of persistent conflict exacerbate this.” The narrative of Black Hearts paints a vivid picture of moral fragmentation in several of the soldier’s lives. Leaders of first platoon were ill-equipped to take their training of professional moral development and apply it to emotional, social, and spiritual fitness. Though these aspects of morality and mental health are taught to soldiers through training on behavioral health and resiliency, soldiers need to be taught how the two, both mental health and army professionalism, can connect and support each other. Doing say lays a foundation for effective and practical ethical training that teaches soldiers how to act on their beliefs and hold others accountable to the moral, ethical, and legal standards of our organization.
Soldiers must be developed as whole people. One method of resolving this problem is through the application of virtue theory. This ideology is even already present within Army doctrine, but has yet to be applied (Human Dimension, 2008): “The moral component of the human dimension is rooted in character, and from character comes behavior… Therefore, soldierly conduct must involve the practice of values and virtues until doing the right thing becomes habitual virtuous conduct that takes on the qualities of duty… Leaders serve as moral exemplars by their conduct… The objective of moral development must be the practice of the military and civic virtues and the internalized dispositions to live by those values all day, every day, professionally and in the Soldier’s private life. This is what integrity is all about – aligning individual and professional values in such a way that beliefs and behaviors are internally consistent”

Trying to incorporate ideas from the corporate world is what is making our military soft. Through the years our training styles have change dramatically because we must be more kindler and softer. Don't yell, touch, be mean or nasty. Some of the old technics where necessary to properly break the individual down. So to be built back up in a mold that could save their lives someday. Somewhere along the way ethics have been lost. The importance of the rank structure, the importance of loyalty to one another. Our men and women in the military need a different mind set then those in the civilian world.Yes we are a profession of arms but we have a mission that many have chosen not to except. Many of the problems of today are the parents teaching the kids of tomorrow. Political correctness is killing the military. All of our concepts are in question. We are fighters of those who can not fight for themselves. We are the defenders of a nation. And we may be called upon to be killers. Although what some may consider a flawed mentality it is our reality. Just my .02