Building a Warrior Ethos
By R.D. Hooker, Jr.
July 08, 2025
The new administration has made much of the need to “build a warrior ethos” in the U.S. military, a worthy goal if pursued rationally and thoughtfully. A good place to start is with the U.S. Army, which in every war suffers the highest casualties and, in the end, takes and holds the ground that usually determines victory. In today’s Army, how do we encourage and incentivize our warrior leaders?
The answer is surprising. One might think that those who lead in the combat arms – that is, officers in the infantry, armor, artillery, special forces, aviation and combat engineer branches – might deserve special recognition in the form of promotions and awards. After all, they incur the highest risk, the most casualties, the most discomfort and the toughest challenges. When not fighting our wars, they spend weeks and months in the field each year conducting dangerous and exhausting training, in all weathers. Life in a combat unit is demanding, with long hours, high stress and hard physical work. Superb physical conditioning and real resilience is a must, given the extreme rigors and demands of leading combat soldiers in peace and war. Unquestionably, the Nation asks more of them than of others.
Why then are all branches and career fields promoted at the same rate? Army promotion statistics show clearly that combat arms officers are given no real preference over others. For example, a recent promotion board selected 48.8 % for promotion to colonel for the Operations category (infantry, armor, field artillery, air defense artillery, aviation, corps of engineers, military police, chemical, special forces, civil affairs, and psychological operations); 46.8% for the Operations Support category (military intelligence, signal corps, strategic intelligence, space operations, public affairs, foreign area officer, operations research and system analysis, force management, simulations, nuclear counterproliferation, Army strategist); and 49.0% for the Force Sustainment career field (logistics, adjutant general corps, finance corps, and acquisition corps – the latter has an incredible 19 general officers). The promotion rate for officers in the Information Dominance category (cyber and information operations career fields) was a staggering 73%.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/07/08/building_a_warrior_ethos_1121272.html
