Soldier's Code

Treat people as they should be treated. In the Soldier's Code, we pledge to "treat others with dignity and respect while expecting others to do the same." Respect is what allows us to appreciate the best in other people. Respect is trusting that all people have done their jobs and fulfilled their duty. And self-respect is a vital ingredient with the Army value of respect, which results from knowing you have put forth your best effort. The Army is one team and each of us has something to contribute.

Discipline is the glue that holds a combat team together. Without it there is no unit cohesion, no espirit de corps, no coordination. However, discipline is a complex product of training, leadership, and respect.

It is respect which creates devotion to the team, and the important part is that that respect flows both up and down the chain of command. A leader respects the skills, strengths, and sacrifices of the people who work for him, and by giving that respect, in time and with effort, his troops come to respect him as well. That respect grows into devotion: the devotion of the leader to his troops, to do his best to see them through tough times and bring them home to their families, and the devotion of the troops to accomplishing the tasks of their unit under the vision of their leadership.

Disrespect, however, has exactly the opposite effect. If a leader disrespects his troops, he fails to earn their respect and therefore fails to create devotion to the team. His attitude will be noticed and will become detrimental to morale, which in turn will hurt the combat effectiveness of each troop as well as the whole. Because he cannot respect his troops, he will also fail to recognize their true strengths and employ his forces to the best of their respective abilities.

If, on the other hand, a troop fails to form respect for ANY leader, no matter how good that leader is at their job, then that troop forms a sort of uprising point... a point of discontention that saps unit cohesion and draws any other malcontents to it. Such behavior undermines the authority of the leader as well as the spirit of the unit which allows troops to go into combat together. As such, a person with such an attitude should be quickly silenced by his NCOs, SNCOs, and peers, who should quickly recognize the adverse effects his actions may have on the unit.

Finally, there is another type of respect that is important to a combat unit: respect for the enemy. Only by recognizing where your opponent bases their combat effective manuevers and realizing the ways in which they shape their movement to maximize their strengths can one truly know their enemy... and by knowing his enemy, a military leader is able to employ tactics which avoid areas where the enemy is strong and instead strikes at the enemy's weakness. By failing to respect his enemies (on some level at least), a leader fails to recognize