After 23 years of Army service, I find this question of what it means to be a profession of arms particularly interesting, since it seems to define the cultural fabric of my passion to serve my country while also subordinating that professional culture to our national ideals and civilian leadership. To defend our Nation with the ethical application of force of arms, our profession must maintain a clear sense of who and what we are by honestly studying our history to gain a more complete and nuanced understanding of our successes and our failures. War is such dangerous activity that people have developed the profession of arms, a dedicated group of certified, trained, equipped, organized, and led professional Soldiers, to execute warfare, but in the United States, as in many other countries, the profession remains subordinate to the political leadership who ultimately determine the scope of war.

This subordination of the profession to the political is key to understanding who is a member of the profession of arms and who is not. For example, Soldiers are clearly members, but are retired Soldiers members or newly hired Soldiers who have not completed basic training? Are DoD civilians part of the profession; they are certainly professionals doing military work, but are they working in the profession of arms. Are civilian contractors part of the profession? What about the civilian leadership, the President, or the Secretary of Defense or the Army?

Anchoring it's members in in a unified view of itself is a requirement of any profession and especially important to the profession of arms.