Professionalism In The Military

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Professionalism in the military sense can be broken up into three components: Competence, emotionless decision making, and developing trust among followers and superiors. While professionals certainly possess other qualities, these three are the common factors among highly effective military leaders of history. Professionalism has been a staple of the “western” armies that Victor Davis Hanson described in his Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. Competence in combat includes a soldier’s ability to use their weapons effectively and to follow orders. The emotionless decision making component is the absence of fear or other distractors in deciding which battles to engage in, how to fight, and in the actual combat …show more content…
Professionalism must be demonstrated at every level of military command to secure victory in combat. If even a single link in the chain does not demonstrate the three qualities that define military professionalism, victory in combat becomes much harder. An effective army without professional leadership is bound to take steps backward for every step forward, whereas professional commanders with incompetent troops will fail to meet their objectives, no matter how expertly planned. The chain of professionalism must be unbroken from upper level commanders to the individuals in a unit to have a reasonable chance of achieving consistent military …show more content…
This was not the case in the British attack on the Zulu tribe in modern day South Africa in 1879. The British soldiers at Rourke’s Drift under Lieutenant John Chard showed incredible professionalism by staying together, fighting with calm concentration, and continuing to fight despite an enormous enemy onslaught and disadvantageous defensive position. They embodied the values described above, which led to victory against the Zulus. The local chain of command, starting with Lieutenant Chard, assembled an expert defensive position in an area with very few natural advantages. He leveraged his expertise as an engineer to design and build a defensive wall out of biscuit boxes and mealie bags that was torso-height in most places. Moreover, his subordinates were able to put aside their fears of combat and construct the defense that Chard envisioned. “British enlisted men in little more than an hour constructed a barricade of some four hundred yards – all under the threat of imminent annihilation” (Hanson, 239). Chard also demonstrated the emotionless decision making first in his decision to stay and defend the hospital. Neither officer at Rourke’s Drift had any battlefield experience against the Zulus, so they put aside ego and enlisted the help of the retired NCO who headed the commissary, James Dalton, who was a veteran of combat. He accepted input
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