Understanding Military Culture

SOCW 6400: Military CultureFinal Project Guidelines
For your Final Project due in Week 10, you will be interviewing a member of the military and writing a paper based on the interview. Review the following guidelines for the Final Project so that you can schedule your time on task appropriately.
Note: If you serve, or have served, as a member of the military, you will write about your own experience with military culture (refer to the section “For those with military service” below).
Your paper should be approximately 7-8 pages in length. In your paper, include your interview questions and a summary of your interviewee’s responses to the questions. Then, write a reflection on your findings.
Part I: Interview an individual who is active military or separated from the military.
Note: You may need to adapt the following questions based on whether your interviewee is active military or separated from the military.
• Can you please identify your affiliation: branch, rank, and job?
• Can you please summarize your permanent change of station (PCS) and deployment experience?
• Why did you join the military?
• Why did you separate?
• How would you characterize your experience in the military?
• How did/does your military experience affect your family?
• Identify some positive and negative aspects of your military experience.
• How would you describe military culture in general?
• What are some memorable experiences about your military life?
• How did your experience in the military help form or influence your identity?
• Consider someone who wants to work in a professional capacity with military personnel, active, retired, or reserves. What is especially important for this individual to know about military culture? Why is this especially important?
• How can professionals help support military personnel and their families?
As a helping professional, you need to engage in conversations with others. How you ask and what you ask is crucial in the development of any helping relationship.

Therefore, think beyond the provided questions to enhance your interview. In addition to using the questions provided, you must craft at least 5 additional questions to ask your interviewee.
Note: Throughout this course, you and your colleagues will be posting ideas for additional interview questions in a wiki. Use the wiki contributions to develop additional questions.
Part II: Reflection
• What information did you gain as a result of this interview?
• What information might be missing?
• How does the information you have gathered inform your professional role?
• Did this interview change your perspective on military culture? If so, how?
• Did you learn anything about yourself through this interview? What misconceptions did you discover? What stood out for you in terms of military culture? Provide specific examples.
• What skills or sensitivities do you think you might need to expand upon? Why are these skills or sensitivities especially relevant to your work with military personnel and their families?
***For those with military service:
• Write a paper reflecting on your experience with military culture.
• Explain the strengths and limitations of the culture.
• Explain how military culture informed your identity.
• Explain what helping professionals who want to work with military personnel should know about military culture.
• Suggest ways for helping professionals to advocate for and provide support to military personnel and their families.