Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 1 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Small Wars Journal
This is the first installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army's objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.
To Change an Army
The Establishment of the Iraqi Center for Military Values, Principles and Leadership
by Colonel Jack D. Kem and Aaron G. Kirby
Field Manual 3-24, the new U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Manual, defines culture as a "web of meaning" shared by members of a particular society or group within a society. Culture (ideas, norms, rituals, codes of behavior) provides meaning to individuals within the society (Department of the Army 2006, 3-6). The Counterinsurgency Manual also states:
Culture might also be described as an "operational code" that is valid for an entire group of people. Culture conditions the individual's range of action and ideas, including what to do and not do, how to do or not do it, and whom to do it with or not to do it with. Culture also includes under what circumstances the "rules" shift and change. Culture influences how people make judgments about what is right and wrong, assess what is important and unimportant, categorize things, and deal with things that do not fit into existing categories... (Department of the Army 2006, 3-7).
The purpose for this article is to examine aspects of culture within Iraq. This examination is based on observations of Iraqi civilian translators and American contractors who worked together to develop classes for the Iraqi military in leadership and ethics studies. These classes were designed to change the Iraqi military into a professional organization that is "ethically based, competently led, loyal to the principles of the constitution and accountable to the civilian leadership and people of Iraq" (MNSTC-I 2006, 6). The preparation for this critically important mission provided the vehicle for observing the cultural differences between these two groups (Iraqi translators and American contractors) based on a "snapshot in time" during the summer of 2006.
