Customs & Courtesies

When I was in the Army, it was very important to know who I was talking to, how they related to me, and how I should interact with them. Rank is important in the military; it determines who leads and who follows. There’s a set of rules that determines how you’re supposed to treat other soldiers, superior and subordinate alike. The key is respect. These rules help to maintain discipline and boost morale. Showing respect is something that most soldiers learn to do very quickly.

When a superior would speak to me, I had to be very deferential. I was required to stand a certain way while they talked to me. I had to listen to what I was told without interruption, responding only when prompted, and if I was told to do anything, I had to act on it. When I spoke, I had to use polite language; no slang, no profanity. I was required to address officers as either sir or ma’am and refer to others by their rank. If I disagreed with something they said, I could try to respectfully give them my point of view, but ultimately, their decision was final.

It was different among soldiers of the same rank; the rules didn’t really apply. These were the people I worked with and saw every day; they’d been through the same things I had. We could joke and make fun of each other. We could use slang and profanity (most soldiers tend to use a lot of profanity). It was much more casual. This was good because being in the Army can be stressful so it helps to have some kind of release. They were like a support group. We would complain to each other all the time too, mainly about things like the weather, waking up early, or getting stuck on guard duty over the weekend. Soldiers love to complain; it’s their favorite pastime. Complaining about little things somehow makes bigger hardships easier to tolerate.

Sometimes the line blurs between superior and friend. This can happen when the experiences shared by a commander and his soldiers bring them closer together, or when a soldier gets promoted over his friends. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be if it makes a commander unwilling to order his friends to do something difficult or if a group of soldiers don’t respect their chain of command anymore. For these reasons, the Army tries to discourage this and maintain these distinctions between how different ranks interact.

Adjusting my behavior around different people isn’t something I picked up exclusively from the Army, though. It’s something everyone does all the time because people have different expectations from everyone else. Someone who consistently treats people the wrong way may become a social outcast, so it’s important to be able to pick up on cues such as body language, tone of voice, and how others react to you. Knowing the proper way to act in different situations is a skill most people learn early and those who master it can do very well for themselves.