United States Army’s Organizational Structure and Culture Essay

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief analysis of the United States Army’s organizational structure and its culture and how these two elements impact its workers, associates and affiliates. This paper will first examine the Army’s history, development and structure to highlight the origins of the Army’s culture. Secondly, a brief history of the Army’s organizational development will be followed by a close examination of its philosophy and supporting beliefs. Lastly, this paper will discuss the role of the Army’s leadership, their response to critical issues and the organizational structure of the Army. An analysis of the army’s top leaders will help the reader to understand the Army culture more thoroughly in the context of the Army’s organizational structure. More specifically this section of the paper will examine the Army leadership’s response to the current geo-political environment and other related issues. In con clusion, this paper hopes to highlight the Army’s overall functioning from an organizational standpoint and emphasize that idea that the Army is like a functional corporation. This will be accomplished by addressing various key questions throughout this text. The U.S. Army Organizational Development Army History and development The Army’s history includes many unique global events such as World War I and II, the Vietnam War, the Korean conflict and most recently operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. An in depth study of these historical events is beyond the scope of this paper however, the origin of the Army is relevant in discussing the Army’s overall culture. According to David W. Hogan’s historical text Centuries of Service cited on the United States Army’s website the United States Army was born on 14 June 1775 (Hogan, 2004). Members of the early Army forces were largely volunteers drawn from local militias. In light of conflict with the British Army the Second Continental Congress recognized that a regular military force was necessary if the colonials were to have any hope of standing up to the British Army. On 14 June, Congress adopted the New England army besieging Boston as an American army and authorized the recruitment of soldiers from various colonial states to form the Continental Army. This emerging Continental Army provided the permanent nucleus of a force that would be supplemented by local militia units. ... ...er 11, 2009, from the Center of Military History website http://www.army.mil/cmh/reference/CSAList/list2.htm Hogan, D. (2004). Centuries of Service. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from the Center of Military History website http://www.army.mil/cmh/reference/CSAList/list1.htm http://www.train.army.mil). http://www.goarmy.com/about/ranks_insignia_officer.jsp http://www.goarmy.com/about/enlisted_soldiers_officers.jsp Kazin, M.. (2004, June 28).. U.S. News & World Report, 136 (23), p72. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database. Lodi, S. (1998, November 26). Reflections on Army Culture. Retrieved September 11, 2009, Â  from http://defencejournal.com/jan99/reflection.htm Rumsfeld, D. (2004, September 10). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld speaks about Iraq at the National Press Club in Washington. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from http://usinfo.state.gov/is/ Schrader. E. (2003, June 28). US push for global police force. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 11, 2009, from http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vcwsu/commons/topics/culture/culture-definitions/geertz-text.html http://www.prisonplanet.com/us_push_for_global_peace_force.html