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This article examines the relationship between advisors and linguists in the contemporary military advising mission and applies an emergent postmodern military culture theoretical framework. This project's multimethod collected data from Iraq, documents, and interviews. The study reveals an intriguing and nuanced story about the deployment of advisors and linguists in the advising mission. This article defines the military advising mission including the major actors. The article then introduces the postmodern military culture theoretical framework and method. The findings report many themes including linguist selection and hiring processes, the importance of advisor–linguist relationships, the relevance of linguists' backgrounds, linguists as full advisory team members, and the building blocks of successful advising sessions. Effective advisors work with linguists to deploy a Swiss Army knife of cultural tools including peacekeeper diplomat, warrior, subject matter expert, innovator, and others to accomplish the mission, which divulge broader changes indicative of an emergent postmodern military and culture.

This project examines the sophisticated cultural toolkit deployed by contemporary US military advisors to successfully build productive relationships with foreign security forces, advance the advising mission, and survive combat. This project's data stems from a three-part multi-method, including a survey conducted in Iraq; a document analysis; and interviews. This article focuses on numerous subthemes that coalesce to vividly divulge an intriguing story about how contemporary advisors build relationships with counterparts, including avoiding an 'Ugly American' approach, how cross-cultural competence benefits the mission and increases survivability, learning about counterparts, the power of informal socializing, employing humor, navigating taboo topics, cultural stretching and associated limits, diplomatically balancing strength and subtlety, and taking physical and cultural risks. This project argues that effective advisors deploy a multifaceted cultural toolkit filled with peacekeeper-diplomat, warrior, subject matter expert, innovator, leader, and other tools, which reveals broader organizational changes indicative of emergent postmodern US military culture. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society/Sage Publications Inc.]

This article examines recent cultural adaptations in the contemporary emergent postmodern American armed forces' culture. First, the piece provides a concise working definition for culture, including a beneficial cultural toolkit concept. Second, the article discusses the concept of postmodernism and then explores applicable examples of contested, divergent, fragmented, and complementary cultural changes, currents, and new tools in US military culture. This study explains cases of cultural innovation linked to the global growth of ambiguity, movement toward greater multiculturalism, impact of the information age, growth of military civilians, increasing questioning of authority and ideas, and the emergence of a multimission military. This project illuminates the stark oppositional qualities and cultural tools of two currently prominent and highly relevant cultural orientations-the warrior and the peacekeeper-diplomat-which, along with other conflicted and necessary cultural spheres, ultimately coalesce and comprise emergent postmodern US military culture. Finally, the article argues that the postmodern military theory requires a new military culture variable. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society/Sage Publications Inc.]

This project examines the sophisticated cultural toolkit deployed by contemporary US military advisors to successfully build productive relationships with foreign security forces, advance the advising mission, and survive combat. This project's data stems from a three-part multi-method, including a survey conducted in Iraq; a document analysis; and interviews. This article focuses on numerous subthemes that coalesce to vividly divulge an intriguing story about how contemporary advisors build relationships with counterparts, including avoiding an "Ugly American" approach, how cross-cultural competence benefits the mission and increases survivability, learning about counterparts, the power of informal socializing, employing humor, navigating taboo topics, cultural stretching and associated limits, diplomatically balancing strength and subtlety, and taking physical and cultural risks. This project argues that effective advisors deploy a multifaceted cultural toolkit filled with peacekeeper-diplomat, warrior, subject matter expert, innovator, leader, and other tools, which reveals broader organizational changes indicative of emergent postmodern US military culture.

This article examines recent cultural adaptations in the contemporary emergent postmodern American armed forces' culture. First, the piece provides a concise working definition for culture, including a beneficial cultural toolkit concept. Second, the article discusses the concept of postmodernism and then explores applicable examples of contested, divergent, fragmented, and complementary cultural changes, currents, and new tools in US military culture. This study explains cases of cultural innovation linked to the global growth of ambiguity, movement toward greater multiculturalism, impact of the information age, growth of military civilians, increasing questioning of authority and ideas, and the emergence of a multimission military. This project illuminates the stark oppositional qualities and cultural tools of two currently prominent and highly relevant cultural orientations—the warrior and the peacekeeper–diplomat—which, along with other conflicted and necessary cultural spheres, ultimately coalesce and comprise emergent postmodern US military culture. Finally, the article argues that the postmodern military theory requires a new military culture variable.

This article forwards a novel approach regarding the U.S. military's growing focus on building cross-cultural competence. This piece argues that a link exists between the armed forces' internal cultural diversity issues and the military's objective to heighten its ability to work effectively in foreign cultures. Cross-cultural competence means the knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral repertoire and skill sets that military members require to accomplish all given tasks and missions involving cultural diversity. Despite the military's noteworthy historic progress in the area of building a diverse and cohesive force, it possesses some ongoing cultural diversity problems. The article examines three concerns within the ranks of the U.S. military: signs of religious intolerance, some ongoing resistance toward women service members, and antihomosexual attitudes and conduct. This piece explores these concerns and also argues that ameliorating these cultural diversity issues will contribute to building cross-cultural competence in the military. Adapted from the source document.

This article forwards a novel approach regarding the U.S. military's growing focus on building cross-cultural competence. This piece argues that a link exists between the armed forces' internal cultural diversity issues and the military's objective to heighten its ability to work effectively in foreign cultures. Cross-cultural competence means the knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral repertoire and skill sets that military members require to accomplish all given tasks and missions involving cultural diversity. Despite the military's noteworthy historic progress in the area of building a diverse and cohesive force, it possesses some ongoing cultural diversity problems. The article examines three concerns within the ranks of the U.S. military: signs of religious intolerance, some ongoing resistance toward women service members, and antihomosexual attitudes and conduct. This piece explores these concerns and also argues that ameliorating these cultural diversity issues will contribute to building cross-cultural competence in the military.

This article explores an innovative secondary educational institution: a public military academy. Data were collected through observations, interviews, paper content analyses, and surveys in an urban military high school. The data reveal how the school's unique military subculture develops students by enabling them to accrue various forms of social capital, including military capital, and by developing cadets' civility, leadership skills and agency, discipline, and propensity for education. Therefore, the institutional product or academy graduate should possess enhanced life skills and increased chances to achieve upward mobility, making this school a potentially powerful educational institution for underprivileged urban-minority youth. Future research should explore how this school compares to other urban public schools, parochial schools, and private military schools and the life outcomes of the students from these different schools. The research has broad implications for the potential power of public military schools, especially in urban environs.

This article examines a forward-deployed US Army unit in Eastern Europe. Drawing from military sociology, the theoretical framework used to study this unit focused primarily on factors of boredom and the fragmentation model of organizational culture. The methodological approach was mixed, including interviews and participant and non-participant observations of the deployed soldiers and military civilians. The research explored unit members' perceptions about unit leadership, quality of life, communication with loved ones, the mission, work roles, interactions with the local foreign military and civilians, and unit diversity. The findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of the relationship between military boredom and fragmentation. Overall, we found some ambiguity regarding some parts of soldiers' lives—including an unclear understanding regarding the nature of the mission. The study also found low to moderate levels of boredom across five domains: underutilization, cultural deprivation, lack of privacy, isolation, and time and space reorientation. Although in most cases the level of boredom related to perceived ambiguity (less boredom usually meant less perceived ambiguity), in some cases an inverse relationship was identified. We conclude that future studies should determine whether our findings apply to newer forward-deployed contexts in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.