"True professionals are servants" and experts in what they do, who derive their satisfaction for "a job well done," a senior fellow at the Center for Army Profession and Ethic at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., said in answering his own question about: "How do we think in this campaign about [the word] profession," especially when serving in the Army?Don Snider said, "Not all work done in society is expert. It’s commercial; it’s done under the profit motive. A lot of productive work in society is done by government occupations."But, "a profession is society’s way of organizing expert work … the kind of work that takes years of knowledge" to master. "You’re not a profession because you say you are."He said a profession is built on four pillars: expert knowledge, expert practices ["We do not practice our art with technology."], "very intensive systems of developing leaders" and ethics, a set of legal and moral guidelines that are self-policed."The professionals’ work is absolutely critical to the survival of the society."Gen. Frederick Franks, USA, Ret., a former TRADOC commander, said, "The history of our Army profession is the history of our nation."Snider added being a soldier is different from being in another profession, such as medicine and the law. A soldier has "to prepare to kill under the right authority" and "to prepare to die to carry out the mission.""When things in Iraq got really tough, soldiers and their battle commanders stayed with it, true to their ethics. ‘I will never quit.’ You went back; you went back again. I have never seen the Army so tough, so focused, so resilient as I see now," Franks said.He added there is another distinction between soldiering and other professions: the demands upon families. "It’s a profession that asks much of its family members."There is also an inherent tension in being a soldier that is different from being a doctor or lawyer because of the dual structure of the Army, Snider said. "It is created by Congress and law as a hierarchical government occupation" while at the same time "it needs to be a vocational profession," a voluntary calling.Snider said the Army does not get to decide whether it is a profession or not. "The American people will decide." At times, such as during the sexual misconduct cases involving drill instructors and recruits at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., the public through the Congress loses that trust that the Army will police itself. The result is the passage of new rules, regulations and laws to ensure proper behavior.He called the yearlong profession of arms study timely to keep soldiering a profession rather than becoming an occupation. "What’s coming? Budget cuts. We’ve got to get ahead of the power curve first intellectually then programmatically."Franks recommended taking the "long view" as the study begins and unfolds, and that includes knowing that "how you think about this will determine what you do about it."Concurrent with the study, Gen. Martin Dempsey, commanding general of TRADOC, announced a "campaign of learning" in the November issue of ARMY Magazine. "I’m interested in having a conversation across our Army about the future and about adaptation. I’m neither looking for consensus nor for affirmation of our current path. In fact, the power of our great profession comes from the diversity of thought possible because each of us has unique experiences, training and education."Adding, "I aspire to sharpen the dialogue about our emerging concepts, doctrine, training, leader development and how we can make adaptation an institutional imperative."