Between Order and Execution: A Phenomenological Approach to the Role of Relationships in Military Culture

Veteran identity is deeply rooted in the experience of military service and military culture (Castro & Kintzle, 2014; Smith & True, 2014; Meyer et al., 2016; Lancaster et al., 2018; McCormick et al., 2019). Despite the growing recognition that military identity and veteran identity are interrelated, there is scant literature that seeks to describe or define military culture—perhaps an indication of the degree to which veterans and civilians alike take military culture for granted as a factor in veteran identity. Following Brim (2013), I will regard military culture broadly: “the total of all knowledge, beliefs, morals, customs, habits, and capabilities acquired by service members and their families through membership in military organizations” (p. 31). Despite the focus on individual service members in Brim’s definition, much of the existing literature on the military treats military culture as a theoretical and often monolithic construct, rather than as a lived experience. Classic works like Samuel Huntington’s (1957) The Soldier and the State, and more recent entries on military culture in general (Wilson, 2008; Hall, 2013), begin with organizational elements—such as rank and role, the use of orders, and the mission of the military—and deductively construct the soldier. However useful this approach may be when considering armies en masse, a different understanding of military culture is necessary when faced with a particular veteran with particular needs, and with a particular identity that is informed by their military service. We need a means to consider how the specific experiences of military service inform specific veteran knowledge, beliefs, morals, etc.; and further, a means to consider more fully how the customs and habits—what soldiers do in the course of service—are connected to the beliefs and morals that constitute military ethos. Because of the gap between theoretical understandings of military culture and the particular experiences of service members, recent scholarship has turned to qualitative research to develop a richer understanding of military culture (McCormick et al., 2019; Lancaster et al., 2018; Smith & True, 2014). In this article I take up the call for “empirical research... to advance conceptualization of military culture from veterans’ perspectives” with a phenomenological approach to military service, and especially service since 9/11 (McCormick et al., 2019, p. 288). As well, I take up the idea of implicit elements of military culture (Brim, 2013), seeking to understand how phenomena that are RESEARCH