Small Wars Journal

Navy, Air Force Lag Behind in Professionalism, Top Pentagon Official Says

Sun, 02/07/2016 - 3:15pm

Navy, Air Force Lag Behind in Professionalism, Top Pentagon Official Says by Andrew Tilghman, Military Times

A force-wide look at misconduct among senior military officers — and the efforts to prevent it — found significant differences among the services’ cultures.

“The Army and the Marine Corps have a very mature profession of arms,” said Rear Adm. Margaret “Peg” Klein, the defense secretary’s senior adviser for military professionalism.

“The ground forces, they send really junior people into leadership positions. They have company command, they have O-3s going into command, and their professional identity is learned very early on,” Klein said, referring to the paygrade for captains in the Army, Marines and Air Force. Navy O-3s are lieutenants. Yet the Navy and the Air Force, historically, “are very technically focused,” she said…

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