Why do we need to focus on military culture? Corie Weathers recently released her new book Military Culture Shift that was born out of the conversations she was having within the military community. She saw trends and shifts within the military community and wanted to get all that information out of her head and down on paper. And she did a remarkable job over covering not only the history of military culture, but also how each generation views different issues and how culture is shifting not only in the world we know but the military too.
Military Culture Shift
Corie Weathers family joined the military in 2008. Her husband wanted to join the military and eventually Corie agreed. And while initially they were going to join the Army Reserve but instead decided to go all in and join the active duty Army. This led to being emersed into Army life. Corie was the AFI Military Spouse of the Year in 2015. This led her to have the opportunity to go overseas with the Secretary of Defense. Going to Iraq, Afghanistan and on two naval ships. This experience opened her eyes as a spouse to what military members experience. She wrote about it in her book Sacred Spaces.
It all starts with a conversation
Because of Corie work as a licensed professional counselor and speaker she had the opportunity to speak with so many members of the military community. And as she started to have different conversations she started to notice themes and trends. This led her to become curious and to learn more. So, she began asking questions with different groups, senior enlisted, senior officers, young military members, new military spouses, seasoned military spouses. What she found was fascinating to her.
One of the biggest takes aways I realized from reading her book was how your generation affects how you see the world. And how different life experiences or moments in time affect each generation differently. Corie and I are technically from two generations. She is a young Gen X, while I am an older millennial. We discussed how certain life events during the formative years had a huge impact on how we view the world. My sister is just two years younger than me but technology changed so rapidly at the time her experience of late high school and college was very different from mine. All these things impact how we view the world. And while one generation asks questions, another generation could see these questions as disrespect.
The focus has to change
We also discussed how the military is facing recruiting challenges. Relying on tactics that have always worked before and not realizing how different the world is today. With social media, 20 years of war, and so many other changes the same recruiting tactic won’t work. For example, the Army has reverted back to the slogan that was popular in the 80s/90s of Be All You Can Be, which is essentially targeting Gen X parents. But the reality there is a lot of hurt and resentment from those same Gen X parents who served and had dreams for what the military could be. But the reality is things didn’t go the way they planned.
How to make changes?
The military needs to focus on the age of information and work to change the things that need to be changed. While also holding fast to things that need to stay the same. There are issues with discrimination, sexual harassment and assault, and work life balance. I believe the military can change for the better. But they also need to hold true to the traditions and systems that have made the military what it is. I recently talked to a young woman who attended boot camp in 2015 at the height of the me too movement. The leaders didn’t know how to act. Instead of treating women and men the same, the training she experienced felt like a watered down version. Where people walked on egg shells and didn’t actually train the women to be the sailors they needed to be.
She expressed wanting to be treated the same. Not special because of her gender. And I think that is where you can’t change how things have been done. Especially if you only change it for one group.
