{"id":3537,"date":"2010-02-10T00:25:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T08:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3537"},"modified":"2010-02-09T21:07:28","modified_gmt":"2010-02-10T05:07:28","slug":"army-initiates-comprehensive-soldier-fitness-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/10\/army-initiates-comprehensive-soldier-fitness-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Army Initiates Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Army’s master resilience training school<\/a> will open on Fort Jackson in April.<\/p>\n

The school is part of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness<\/a> program, the Army’s latest attempt to train Soldiers not only for war, but also for life.\u00a0 To that end, the CSF program describes “five dimensions of strength:”\u00a0 Physical, Emotional, Social, Family, and Spiritual.<\/p>\n

The Army apparently recognizes one of the most common displays of spiritual strength among its\u00a0Soldiers: the poster for “spiritual strength” contains a photograph of uniformed and armed Army members praying in a circle.<\/p>\n

\"US

US Army Graphic<\/p><\/div>\n

Ironically, this public expression of spirituality is occasionally imperiled by critics who feel that the displays inappropriately connect the US military with religion (more specifically, Christianity).\u00a0 For the time being, the military’s hypersensitivity to religious offense has not yet restricted public displays of group prayer (a common occurrence in both Afghanistan and Iraq prior to combat).\u00a0 It is worth noting that the Army’s summary definition of spiritual strength does not imply it has to be religion, but is a<\/p>\n

set of beliefs, principles, or values that sustain a person beyond family, institutional, and societal sources of strength.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a concept supported by the Chaplaincy<\/a>.\u00a0 Though sometimes difficult to find the right word for, it has been the Army’s attempt to say that everyone has something<\/em> that drives their inner being that\u00a0can be improved under the banner of “spiritual strength.”<\/p>\n

This course was previously discussed, and while an admirable effort by the Army, has been criticized as a re-packaged “power of positive thinking” program<\/a>.\u00a0 Ultimately, the school is an attempt by the Army to train the “whole person:”<\/p>\n

“Soldiers are going to (learn) life skills and coping skills — skills that are going to help them be better and more effective leaders,” said Sgt. Maj. Stanley Johnson, headquarters TRADOC, who is serving as a liaison between Victory University and the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US Army’s master resilience training school will open on Fort Jackson in April. The school is part of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, the Army’s latest attempt to train Soldiers not only for war, but also for life.\u00a0 To that end, the CSF program describes “five dimensions of strength:”\u00a0 Physical, Emotional, Social, Family, and Spiritual. The Army apparently recognizes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,88,4,166,52,2,11,17,10,167],"class_list":["post-3537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-army","tag-churchandstate","tag-comprehensive-soldier-fitness","tag-iraq","tag-military","tag-prayer","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-resilience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}