05 Mar Military Culture: Core Value, Service Before Self

Discussion 2- Military Culture

Service before self is not exclusive to military personnel, but shared by their loved ones. Military families feel the burden of sacrifice on a daily basis as they support their loved ones who serve. Sometimes those sacrifices are minimal, while others are or feel colossal. Still, like the military personnel, these families accept that self-sacrifice is part of the way of life.

Think for a moment about what it truly means to put service before self. Reflect on a time when you may have engaged in such a service. Perhaps you can identify when you acted unselfishly in your workplace. For example, you may have taken personal time to help mentor a coworker or offered to manage a work-sponsored community service activity. Consider, also, why you are seeking a career as a helping professional. Might it be fueled by your desire to put service before self—to help others beyond yourself?

For this Discussion, consider a time when you sacrificed something important and how that sacrifice impacted your life.

Post a description of a time where you engaged in a role that required service before self. Explain the role of self-sacrifice in your service and the impact this may have had on your life and that of your family. If you never engaged in such a role, consider a time when you sacrificed something important and how that sacrifice impacted your life. Using your personal experiences as an understanding of what it means to put service before self, discuss the sacrifices military personnel and their families make for service to their country. If you have military experience, please explain how your service has impacted your life.

**I’m a Army Veteran. My job was a Human Resource Specialists were I was trained in document preparation, drafting requests, and overseeing official documentation, such as ID cards and tags. I also learned computer programming that kept personnel data up to date.**