Army Values
Loyalty | Duty | Respect | Selfless service | Honor | Integrity | Personal courage
“Army Values” is not merely a phrase for how members of the Army should act; they are who we are. We emulate the seven Army Values because they are the standard for behavior, not only in the Army, but in any ordered society.
Army Values received their impetus from the Army’s Character Development XXI initiative and have been part of the initial-entry training scene since July 1998, when dogtags and thousands of posters representing loyalty, duty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity and personal courage (the seven core Army Values) were distributed worldwide to the field down to company level. The Army designed color posters depicting each of the seven core values, while an eighth poster features all the values.
In Training and Doctrine Command, drill sergeants and instructors teach IET Soldiers how to be warriors, but in TRADOC the sense of the Army as a values-based institution also begins. Every member of TRADOC – Soldier and civilian – is responsible for living and mentoring others in the Army Values.
The Army’s seven core values and their importance in today’s Army are:
Loyalty
Loyalty is the faithful adherence to a person, unit or Army. It is the thread that binds our actions together and causes us to support each other, our superiors, our family and our country.
Supporting a superior or a program even though it is being openly criticized by peers or subordinates requires courage and loyalty. A loyal intermediate would try to explain the rationale behind the decision and support the decision maker. When we establish loyalty to our Soldiers, the unit, our superiors, our family and the Army, we must be sure the “correct ordering” of our obligations are being accomplished and not the easiest. There is no clear rule as to which comes first. Sometimes it will be the service, sometimes the family and sometimes the Soldier.
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