The Importance of Accountability and Responsibility in the U.S. Army
The following essay is a compilation of my personal experiences, definitions, and examples of how responsibility and accountability are important to surviving in today’s U.S. Army. Responsibility is increased when soldiers have a single, clear set of rules that apply to a specific event. When the guidelines are unclear, or when more than one set of rules seems to apply to an event, responsibility is decreased.
Responsibility is: the obligation for the proper, custody, care, and safekeeping of property or funds entrusted to the possession or supervision of an individual.
Being responsible in the US Army has got to be of the utmost importance in my opinion. Throughout the past few months I have been dealing with many problems physically and mentally, and I strongly believe that this has, in part, to blame for my lack of responsibility. Even so, this is really no reason at all to slack on any part of being a responsible Private E-2.
Soldiers must be and act responsibly in every situation they may find themselves in, whether it’s in or out of uniform. Responsibility increases when soldiers believe that they have personal control over their mission performance, performing out of desire to do well instead of just following orders. There have been many studies that have suggested that when a Soldier feels that they have personal control over work performance the result is that the Soldier has a better task performance, better problem solving, a higher persistence in accomplishing the task, more positive emotions and even better psychological and physical health. Responsibility and accountability are two of the main factors in being a successful Soldier in today’s U.S. Army. You must be a responsible soldier if you want to make it through deployment alive. Or even worse, if you fail to be responsible you could risk someone else’s life or your entire squad’s lives.