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Promote the Best Qualified, or Consider Diversity?

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Promote the Best Qualified, or Consider Diversity?
Eric B. Olsen
Excelsior College
LA498M: LA Capstone-(Military Focus)
Mr. Larry Fegans
4 June 2015

Abstract
The Army, as part of the Department of Defense (DOD), is the premier military organization in the world. Part of what makes the Army an outstanding organization is the diverse backgrounds that their soldiers are come from. There are African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, Pacific Islanders, and more that help balance out its demographic profile. Soldiers who are Caucasian make up the majority of the Army demographic (Army G1, 2014). What is most impressive is the ability for everyone to work together to accomplish the Army’s mission with so few cases of equal opportunity violations per capita. While the Army celebrates diversity by recognizing different women and minorities during certain months, does the Army sacrifice the best-qualified person for diversity? Surprisingly, there have been times where the Army has gone against its own policies and training to enhance diversity; failing to recognize the best-qualified soldiers for promotion.

Promote the Best Qualified, or Consider Diversity? One of the strengths of the Army is its soldiers come from a wide background with unique talents and abilities. This diversity helps the Army accomplish its goals and soldiers have successful careers based on their performance and potential for increased responsibility. However, can an organization like the DOD be successful if they prioritize the needs of a particular group higher than that of sequestration or national? Although Americans say no, and would agree that discrimination is still an infiltrator within the DOD, they consider many of the experimental affirmative actions to be untimely and borderline fraudulent. An example of this is terminating experimentation on the

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