Living among the people of war has left an indelible mark on my life. During the Bosnian war, I journeyed with the faith group leaders of local ethno-religious communities in their struggle not only to survive the open conflict among their peoples but also to somehow find a way to rise above it in the hopes of sharing a more secure and prosperous future together. Over the course of time an identifiable impulse among deployed chaplains toward an external ministry of reconciliation began to emerge. Albeit, ad hoc in nature, it has raised questions of the viability of such ministry among local religious leaders in conflict zones and its strategic value with respect to the accomplishment of missions. As such, this thesis will reply to the following two-part hypothesis: (1) Among operational chaplains in conflict zones there is an emerging sense of agency to seed reconciliation by building relation among estranged religious leaders and their faith communities resulting in a need for a new self-understanding expressed both theologically and in praxis; and (2) the writings of Miroslav Volf and Vern Neufeld Redekop can provide the basis for a framework that will enable the creation of strategic and operational structures that will allow reconciliation praxis to be sustainable and to grow. The methodology unfolds naturally in the structure of the thesis itself: context, theory and application. In establishing context, relevant data from a variety of chaplaincy resources is consulted with a view to identifying the beginnings of what is believed to be a paradigm shift in operational ministry. Documented case studies from both the Bosnian and Afghan theatres of operation are offered as a means of establishing the context. Of significance, the theory developed here may be generalized to other contexts. The theoretical component initially draws on the theology of Miroslav Volf. His theme of exclusion discloses the evils frequently characteristic of ethno-religious groups in conflict, often manifested in alienation, subjugation, demonizing and, sadly, extermination of the other. Additionally, Volf's theme of embrace yields a theology of reconciliation whereby the estranged religious other, and by extension their respective faith communities, discovers the will to embrace in an effort to rise above conflict and/or alienation to that of relation. Redekop's contribution resides in his ability to transition from the theological to the theoretical, tangibly identifying the dynamics of deep-rooted conflict. Through dialogue the mimetic modeling of acceptance of all by the chaplain is seen to move the religious other beyond a wounded subjectivity toward mutuality. Relation building sees the eclipsing of the structures of mimetic violence (exclusion) by those of mimetic blessing (embrace). Such seeding of reconciliation enables the self a renewed vision of the humanity of the other. Application draws on both theology and theory bringing them together in the formulation of the External Ministry of Reconciliation Paradigm, a contextual theology supported by a theoretical component pertinent to the external operational ministry of chaplains among estranged local religious leaders and their faith communities. Theory and praxis are then applied to both the Bosnian and Afghan case studies. Concrete and strategic operational structures emerge from the ad hoc, as the sustainability of the seeding of reconciliation becomes a viable ministry for deployed chaplains in conflict zones. Pivotal to this thesis is the will to embrace, understood to be the in-breaking of transcendence as the agency of chaplains mimetically model mutuality in relation, a manifestation of grace. The rigidity of the satisfaction of strict (retributive) justice as a prerequisite to engagement is deemed an injustice in and of itself due to its holding hostage any movement toward relation. An attending to justice will come to fruition in the journey toward mutuality. The chaplain's genuine receptivity of the other, demonstrated through hospitality and the creation of a safe place in which to share, reflects his/her aspiration for the empowering of the other , lead[ing] to creative and ever-expanding options oriented toward life (blessing). Both ritual and symbol factor significantly into the establishing of operational structures drawn from the hosting culture: an interfaith celebration, the breaking of bread together and the Shura are presented as examples. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This study is a critical review of the existing literature pertaining to combat and operational stress reactions (COSRs) in female active duty service members. Presented is a description of COSRs, a review of prevention programs, and an examination of gender differences. Utilizing literature from academic journal databases, the researcher reviewed articles demonstrating the content, feasibility, and efficacy of primary and secondary prevention activities. These activities included unit needs assessments, stress inoculation, mindfulness, master resiliency training, anxiety reduction training, psychological first aid, restoration centers, deployment transition centers, debriefings, graphic novels, and the influence of family and leader systemic levels. Females’ unique experiences are narrated from the literature to include motherhood, pregnancy, contraception, menstruation, and “gendered stress.” A discussion of military sexual assault is presented. Suggestions are made for future research to involve development of COSR criteria, screening tools including unique gendered questions, oversampled efficacy studies for females, and studies focused on transgender service members.

Frequent military deployments have been associated with relationship issues for active-duty members, such as marital conflict and infidelity. Previous research has indicated that attachment, communication, and mental health are associated with military marriages’ stability during deployment. However, there remains an important gap in the current literature on military marriages regarding perceptions of infidelity (emotional and sexual). Proponents of attachment theory postulate that early attachment experiences facilitate the development of self-perception as well as perceptions of others. From this perspective, the attachment of military spouses is associated with their perceptions of their active-duty spouses engaging in infidelity. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between attachment, as measured by the Adult Attachment Scale, and infidelity perceptions, as measured by the Infidelity Expectations Questionnaire, for military spouses during their active-duty members’ deployment. A sample of 178 military spouses was recruited through social media platforms to complete surveys. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression were conducted to identify the association and strength between attachment scores and infidelity perceptions. Findings indicate that proximity was a challenge due to deployment, during which spouses were continuously faced with communication challenges and feeling detached from the active-duty member. This contribution to existing literature may enhance social-change initiatives by informing education for military couples, providing a basis for attachment and infidelity-related training.

D-Day is an event that has seated itself in collective memory, particularly America, as a seminal moment of the Second World War, and of the 20th century. Often the Allied landings in Upper Normandy are conceptualized as a watershed moment of the Second World War, signaling the eventual, unavoidable defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Yet, the reality of the situation was far more complicated, as the success of OVERLORD was followed by months of grueling fighting in the Norman bocage. Weeks after the successful landings, the war began to resemble the slow, attritional warfare that had defined the First World War. While the Allies possessed a monumental advantage both in terms of manpower and material, the Germans managed to contain them to a small geographic area, preventing the Allies from bring this advantage to bear. As such, D-Day—though certainly the most well-known aspect of the Normandy campaign—was not the only vitally important operation. In fact, Operation COBRA, the Allied breakout operation, proved to be an inflection point of operations in Normandy. Though it is largely overshadowed by OVERLORD, COBRA proved to be one of the most important military operations in western Europe, allowing the Allies to exploit their massive advantages in material and manpower through a war of maneuver. Operation COBRA is the focus of this analysis, but not in a traditional sense. While COBRA has been largely marginalized, receiving scant attention in general histories of the Second World War, a small but comprehensive historiography on the subject does exists. This body of historical work constitutes a discourse, detailing a changing understanding of COBRA within the Second World War. The focus of this analysis seeks to shift the current paradigm about Operation COBRA, analyzing its legacy in military thought following the Second World War—namely COBRA’s legacy and role in the development of the U.S. Army’s Cold War-era AirLand Battle doctrine. The primary objective of this study is to develop a link between Operation COBRA’s legacy and the development of AirLand Battle doctrine, demonstrating its place in modern military thought. The analysis is developed through four major components. The first section provides a brief overview of Operation COBRA, itself, and seeks to impart readers with a sense of why COBRA was, at the time, mostly unprecedented. The second section, a historiography of COBRA, provides insight to historians’ changing understanding and framing of Operation COBRA. The third section provides a broad overview of AirLand Battle doctrine while also analogizing Operation COBRA and the U.S. Army’s Cold War doctrine. In this way the third section proposes a link between COBRA and AirLand Battle doctrine. Finally, the fourth section attempts to solidify this link by analyzing several decades of papers written at the Army Command and General Staff College, demonstrating a reoccurring discourse that continually linked COBRA to AirLand Battle doctrine. Ultimately, this analysis seeks to bridge the discursive space that exists between historical and modern military thought, as both are necessary for the formation of innovative military doctrine.

No description available.

The military has a long tradition of distributing honors to its soldiers in a calculated and uneven way, all to reinforce internal hierarchies it finds necessary. For example, officers have nicer uniforms, are shown more respect, and are awarded medals at a higher rate than the soldiers they command. “Normal” soldiers used to be similarly privileged over their auxiliary “colored” counterparts. In the 20th Century a new line of demarcation was created between front-line combatants (infantrymen, artillerymen, and so on) on the one hand, and rear-echelon support soldiers (supply clerks, cooks, and so on), on the other. This new line of demarcation creates a two-tier system of honor, with support soldiers debased in social standing to show greater honor to their combatant brethren. Before the 20th Century, there were hardly any support soldiers to demean, as the logistical needs of the U.S. military were provided for by civilian camp followers. Now uniformed support soldiers constitute roughly seventy percent of the military. The front-line combatant soldier, once the typical soldier, has become a minority within the military, but a prestigious minority. The two-tier system of honor that privileges combatant soldiers over their support counterparts finds enthusiastic support among combatant soldiers, support soldiers, and in the civilian world. It is reasonable to show the most respect to soldiers who have suffered the most, and undeniably combatant soldiers are killed and wounded at the highest rate. Yet the nature of the two-tier system of honor has qualities that suggest that it is based on more than simply logical and just deference. First, support soldiers (the majority of the military) are not so much shamed as invisible: the fact that the new “median” soldier is today not an infantryman, but a cook, clerk, or water purification specialist rarely enters into public discourse. Secondly, while some uniformed service members are denied military honor, certain civilians have begun making unprecedented claims to military honor. By analyzing recent commemorative art about war, including the Washington D.C. memorials, the Quartermaster Museum at Fort Lee, VA (a museum founded to honor support soldiers), and local commemorative projects that aspire to national recognition, I will show that the social narrative of combat, long the dominant storyline of the military, has been fused with the related personal (and more inclusive) narrative of trauma. This new storyline of trauma-combat has discredited competing storylines. Technical competence, contribution to victory, and belief in the system one defends have become irrelevant, and these were the pathways to military honor open to support soldiers as such. The new narrative of trauma-combat also makes it possible for a war widow or a disabled contractor to claim the honor formerly reserved for soldiers. Loss related to war is the ultimate and only sign of a soldier, and who best embodies this loss than a war widow or a civilian contractor paralyzed by war wounds? At the beginning of the 20th Century, military authority asserted direct control over its camp-followers by placing them in uniform, thus creating a body of support soldiers that would eventually outsize the combat component it was designed to support. At the beginning of the 21st century, the periphery of the military continues to be militarized, while within the military itself, the typical soldier ceases in many ways to be a soldier at all.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / After the Second World War, the leaders of the Department of the Army (DA) worked to inform those in the service that they had a duty to help the American people understand what the Army was doing to provide security for the nation. Their goal was for the public to have, at a minimum, the same amount of understanding of the Army as it had during World War II. To achieve this goal they believed that the officer corps had to be convinced that explaining to the public what the service was doing was in the best interest of the Army. The effort of the leaders to convince the officer corps was conducted by two primary means. First, the leaders made many public statements announcing that the Army would continue to inform the American people. Second, they added a requirement for those setting the curricula at the senior two schools of the service to provide instruction about the program that the Army had, which had three sub-programs, to update the American public. Between AY 1947 and 1989, the leaders continued to talk about the importance of informing the public. However, those approving the curricula at the two Colleges of the Army placed decreasing emphasis on educating students about what public affairs was and how to conduct it. This assertion is based on three primary findings. First, there is a clear decrease in the number of hours allocated to teaching about public affairs. Second, over the course of this period students were provided with fewer chances to apply what they were learning. Third, the coverage of the instruction went from covering at least two of the components of the Army’s program to at best only one. In the end a gap is clearly visible between what the leaders of the Army were saying regarding the importance of educating officers about public affairs and what was included in the curricula of these two schools: deeds did not match words.

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah J. Fishback / In today’s interconnected world, teams must form quickly, learn and adapt to overcome challenges regardless of the environment. For example, complexity in responding to natural disasters or man-made political, economic and security crises often requires the ability to learn collaboratively to minimize human suffering and protect property. When teams find success, the operation succeeds beyond what a single organization can provide, but when teams fail they can make a bad situation worse. Leveraging an approach called a Leader Team Exercise (LTX), teams can generate the shared qualities of understanding, confidence and competence in a structured manner to accelerate learning and performance. This research study investigated the potential of an LTX through initial research in a within-subjects experimental design of the 161st Artillery Battalion, Kansas Army National Guard as they negotiated obstacles located on the Fort Riley, Kansas Field Leaders Reaction Course (FLRC). The quantitative data collected was evaluated employing non-parametric statistical tests to answer five research questions about the relationship of the LTX to dependent variables of team performance, shared understanding and shared confidence to further explore field observations of learning action teams. The study provides new knowledge to further advance understanding of the LTX and its relationship to team performance and learning. In addition, the study also offers a source of data as a foundation for future research to continue investigation into the full depth and breadth of the LTX in other settings and conditions. The study found a relationship among the dependent variables and the FLRC, as well as a relationship between the LTX and team demographics related to shared understanding and performance. The findings also advance the adult education body of knowledge about learning dynamics, which occur outside the classroom. The implications to improve teams that rapidly form, disband, and form again will impact adult learning in a wide spectrum of applications in the government, academia and industry. Finally, the study offers recommendations for future areas of research and practical application based on current knowledge for the Kansas National Guard and others who might use or plan on using the LTX in the future.

<p> Following the passage of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill in 2008, U.S. military service members and veterans have been enrolling at institutions of higher education at rapidly increasing rates (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2014). As a result, campus administrators and mental health professionals are seeking new and better ways to support this growing population (Coll &amp; Weiss, 2015). The few existing studies on the mental health of military-affiliated students suggest they feel isolated on campus (DiRamio, Ackerman, &amp; Mitchell, 2008) and are more likely than civilian peers to experience depression, posttraumatic stress (PTS), and suicidal ideation (Barry, Whiteman, McDermid Wadsworth, &amp; Hitt, 2012; Rudd, Goulding, &amp; Bryan, 2011). The current study explored the role of two different types of on-campus peer social support&mdash;military and civilian&mdash;in mediating the relationship between adult attachment orientation and posttraumatic stress, as well as its correlate, hazardous alcohol use. Data was collected via Web-based, self-report survey from 221 military and veteran students across the United States. Latent variable path analyses indicated that civilian peer social support mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and PTS, but only partially, underscoring the enduring role of adult attachment orientation in the response to trauma. Psychometric issues limited the testing of models that included military peer social support. Results are discussed in the context of potential on-campus counseling interventions and resources.</p>