Abstract
In 2013, the United States Army renamed their human resources division the Army Resiliency Directorate. Such a re-designation signifies a shift within the US Army specifically and Western militaries generally to conceptualize military personnel issues through a particular vision of mental and behavioral health: resilience. Military resilience programs suggest that a properly enhanced soldier can train themselves to be more lethal in armed conflict, satisfied with their life, and cost-effective for the government. This chapter conceptualizes military resilience as a human resource model for personnel management, focusing first on the co-constitution of the field of psychology with military behavioral health before examining the Global Assessment Tool (GAT) and an ongoing legal proceeding to request access to this survey instrument.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
‘Performance’ is capitalized on the website.
- 2.
According to Peterson, Park, and Castro, ‘Those in attendance included O. Wayne Boyd, Carl A. Castro, Denise Clegg, Angela Duckworth, Stephen Lewandowski, Michael Matthews, Sharon McBride, Stephanie Muraca, Nansook Park, Christopher Peterson, Barry Schwartz, Martin E. P. Seligman, and Patrick M. Sweeney.’
- 3.
Again, while longitudinal, the survey data is collected sporadically.
- 4.
RealAge is a metric that indicates a person’s age based on lifestyle habits. For instance, smoking would increase RealAge.
- 5.
This is somewhat unremarkable because doing so would undermine the content of the survey soldiers are required to take. It does, however, illustrate the non-transparent nature of the GAT.
- 6.
The GAT has undergone a third rebranding and is currently called the Azimuth Check. It continues to be described as ‘the GAT’ some of the time.
- 7.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the US Department of the Army on February 28, 2019, I requested access to all versions of the GAT from 2008 to present. At the time of writing this chapter, I received a substantial number of questions from the different iterations of the survey. There are still questions that have not been released at all and others that have been released only for viewing in the context of writing my dissertation. In other words, at this time, the questions for the three versions of the GAT (GAT, GAT 2.0, and Azimuth Check) are not publicly accessible or verifiable.
References
Army Resiliency Directorate. 2022. “Army Resiliency Directorate.” Accessed June 1 2022. http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/default.asp.
ASA M&RA/Army G-1 Public Affairs. 2013. “US Army Designates Army Resiliency Directorate, Promotes Force Readiness Through Personnel Resilienc [sic].” https://www.army.mil/article/114403/us_army_designates_army_resiliency_directorate_promotes_force_readiness_through_personnel_resilienc.
Boxall, P., and J. Purcell. 2011. Strategy and Human Resource Management. London: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Brown, N. 2015. “A Critical Examination of the US Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program.” The Winnower. https://doi.org/10.15200/winn.143751.17496.
Brown, W. 2015. Undoing the Demos. New York: Zone Books.
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2). 2018. “Metrics & Evaluation.” CSF2. Accessed December 31 2018. http://csf2.army.mil/metrics.html.
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2). 2019. “CSF2 FAQs.” CSF2. Accessed January 20 2019. http://csf2.army.mil/faqs.html.
Cowen, D. 2008. Military Workfare: The Soldier and Social Citizenship in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Department of the Army. 2014. Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (AR 350-53). Accessed July 16 2021. https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/r2/policydocs/r350_53.pdf.
Gould, S. J. 1996. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: Norton.
Grove, K. 2014. “Agency, Affect, and the Immunological Politics of Disaster Resilience.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32 (2): 240–256. https://doi.org/10.1068/d4813.
Hammer, J., R. Cragun, and K. Hwang. 2013. “Measuring Spiritual Fitness: Atheist Military Personnel, Veterans, and Civilians.” Military Psychology 25 (5): 438–451. https://doi.org/10.1037/mil0000010.
Holling, C. S. 1973. “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4 (1): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.
Howell, A. 2018. “Forget ‘Militarization’: Race, Disability and the ‘Martial Politics’ of the Police and of the University.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 20 (2): 117–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2018.1447310.
Lester, P. B., P. D. Harms, M. N. Herian, and W. J. Sowden. 2015. “A Force of Change: Chris Peterson and the US Army’s Global Assessment Tool.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 10 (1): 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2014.927904.
Meredith, L. S., C. D. Sherbourne, S. J. Gaillot, L. Hansell, H. V. Ritschard, A. M. Parker, and G. Wrenn. 2011. “Promoting Psychological Resilience in the US Military.” Rand Health Quarterly 1 (2): 2.
Mitchell, C. N., to J. McHugh and Gen. G. W. Casey Jr. 2010. Accessed July 16 2021. http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/docs/spirituality_testing_cnd.pdf.
“Obama Administration Responds to a ‘We The People’ White House Petition by Citing Changes in ‘Spiritual Fitness’ Test Language and Applicability Recommended by MRFF.” 2015. https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/2015/12/september-20-2013-obama-administration-responds-to-a-we-the-people-white-house-petition-by-citing-changes-in-spiritual-fitness-test-language-and-applicability-re/.
Peterson, C., N. Park, and C. Castro. 2011. “Assessment for the US Army Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program.” American Psychologist 66 (1): 10–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021658.
Segal, D., and M. W. Segal. 2004. “America’s Military Population.” Population Bulletin 59 (4): 3–40.
Seligman, M. E. P. 2011a. “Building Resilience.” Harvard Business Review 89 (4): 100–106.
Seligman, M. E. P. 2011b. “Helping American Soldiers in Time of War: Reply to Comments on the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Special Issue.” American Psychologist 66 (7): 646–647. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025156.
Seligman, M. E. P., and R. Fowler. 2011. “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness and the Future of Psychology.” American Psychologist 66 (1): 82–86. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021898.
Shingleton, J., S. Buttrey, F. Orendorff, and E. Wright. 2016. TRADOC Analysis Center: Global Assessment Tool (GAT) Trend Analysis. No. TRAC-M-TR-18-012.
Sogn, E. 2014. “Throw a Survey at It: Questioning Soldier Resilience in the US Army.” Anthropology Now 6 (1): 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/19492901.2013.11728414.
Study of Resilience Programs for Members of the Army. 2013. Section 583: Public Law 112–239.
US Army. 2011. “Millionth Soldier takes the Global Assessment Tool.” https://www.army.mil/article/51349/millionth_soldier_takes_the_global_assessment_tool.
Vahia, V. 2013. “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5: A Quick Glance.” Indian Journal of Psychiatry 55 (3): 220–223. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.117131.
Vie, L., L. M. Scheier, P. B. Lester, and M. E.P. Seligman. 2016. “Initial Validation of the US Army Global Assessment Tool.” Military Psychology (28) 6: 468–487. https://doi.org/10.1037/mil0000141.
Yoakum, C. S., and R. M. Yerkes. 1920. Army Mental Tests. New York: Holt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Naumes, S. (2022). Reconceptualizing Military Resilience Programming in the United States Army as Human Resource Management. In: Bourke, J., Schott, R.M. (eds) Resilience. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13367-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13367-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13366-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13367-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)