Importance Of Integrity In The Military

What Army Value do you think is the most important? Which one and why?

All army values are extremely important. There can be a lot of discussions about which value is the most significant. Personally, I want to talk about integrity, which in my opinion is the core value, and is by far the most important one among all seven.

Integrity is the primary element of military professionalism. Without it, the profession loses the trust of the society it serves. Society expects and requires integrity of its leaders. We are the face of the nation, and we need to represent our country and its citizens with pride. Doing the right things, even when no one is watching, is supposed to be our mentality. In other words, integrity means more to the professional soldier than the dictionary definition. It means honesty, truthfulness, reliability, impartiality, sincerity, open-mindedness, trustworthiness,

Whether on- or off-duty, whether active or retired, he continues his status as a military professional. Any event or condition that tarnishes the image of the military profession or raises doubt about its integrity will have negative consequences.

All of us had the situation when it seemed much more convenient to turn off the integrity for a second and drive on. Sometimes being honest is much more difficult than it seems. Being able to admit it and still do the right thing is the show of personal strength and professionalism.

Sometimes we are deciding between doing the right thing, or just drive on and pretend that nothing happened. It’s almost as if we do the right thing only when it’s convenient for us. We tell ourselves it is OK to cheat the system just this once, but then cheating becomes the norm. Over time, our definition of integrity becomes warped and we continue to waste energy inventing new ways to rationalize that we somehow still have