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Developing Resiliency at The Squad Level
216 SGT Timothy C. Hughes
8th Army Wightman NCO Academy
Basic Leaders Course 005-25
SSG Radames Berroa
March 26, 2025
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Developing Resiliency at The Squad Level
The purpose of this essay is to explain the importance of resiliency within a
squad element and how to develop and foster that resilience within servicemembers.
Physical toughness in the workspace of the Army is essential to the accomplishment of
the mission, therefore, building a strong and resilient body to accomplish that mission is
critical. Mental fortitude during servicemember’s time in their organizations is significant
for a more productive and stable formation, as well as regulation of a Soldier’s
emotions. Spiritual health is paramount to the long-term success and longevity of any
team or organization and is accessible to any service member who holds those beliefs.
Overall, the benefits of implementing and fostering good physical, mental, emotional,
and spiritual resilience is seen in any setting, whether in the workplace or out in the
field, improvement in morale and fewer causalities of common injuries and illness.
The body of a Solider is the arguably the most important asset that they possess,
and the effects of high or low physical resiliency are very visible. High resiliency can
allow Soldiers to push themselves to their limit with a lower chance of injury, and the
physical tasks that they perform can be done at a higher quality and more numerously
before fatigue sets in, "Physical readiness is a critical component of Soldier readiness,
unit readiness, and Army readiness. Effective Soldiers can overcome ever-changing
and complex challenges in both strategic and operational environments. They must
possess the physical and nonphysical capabilities to fight and win in multi-domain
operations. (FM 7-22, Chapter 7-1, 2020)”. Negative effects are a higher chance of
injuries that take those Soldiers out of the fight and then require resources and time to
heal and become Fully Mission Capable (FMC), time they could instead be contributing
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to their tasks and duties. Developing a squad to become more physically resilient can
be approached in a varity of ways, one being a Physical Training (PT) regimen puts
emphasis on warm-ups and stretches at the beginning and end of each PT session
respectively. Leaders could also consult their unit’s Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F)
trainers to help guide them and develop a schedule specifically to train the members of
their squad on a case-by-case basis. Doing so not only improves a Soldier physically
but also contributes greatly to their mental wellbeing, setting the squad up to start
working on the health and resilience of their minds.
Soldiers' mental fortitude and sharpness is key in everyday work and during
operations, allowing them to think clearly and critically in high stress environments.
Operating for long periods of time causes mental fatigue and lose of cognitive ability, for
soldiers conducting operations and other service members in an on base setting, both
can greatly benefit from a higher mental resilience to deal with unique stressors that
come with those environments. “Resilience is a powerful force that shapes our mental
health outcomes in the face of adversity. By understanding the components of resilience
and adopting strategies to nurture it, we can cultivate inner strength, adaptive coping
skills, and a positive mindset. (Zahid, A. Rosa, P., 2023, p.2)” Lacking mental resilience
can have dire consequences, especially in high-risk work areas or operations, combat
operations for example, if a soldier on patrol can't operate and perform their prescribed
duties due to mental fatigue, exhaustion, or lack of rest, etc. The other example is in a
workplace environment, the Soldier is overtasked for multiple weeks in preparation for
an upcoming field event, due to being overworked, the tasks they complete take much
longer and are not done to standard, causing possible rework on tasks and more work
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for other Soldiers. Within the squad there are many ways to develop and train
subordinates to have mental resilience, scheduling resiliency classes with the unit H2F
trainers. A mentally fit Soldier is ready for any situation they may come across but still
has other aspects of resiliency that they must address.
Making spiritual support available within the formation helps with every aspect
that was discussed prior, benefits include, Soldiers who have higher morale and can
deal with higher stress environments and situations. Soldiers having a higher sense of
responsibility and being a part of something much larger than themselves that comes
with a spiritual world view, helps give more validity to the Army and its social structures,
servicemembers have a better relationship with higher powers and a bigger picture that
they might not always be able to see. This can also benefit an organization with certain
spiritual values being very similar to the Army’s established values, even being the
same values altogether, building a more coherent formation with similar views and
beliefs, “Informed leaders understand the requirements for time, space, materiel, and
other conditions required to support spiritual readiness practices within particular
organizations. Individual spiritual readiness obligations can vary widely. (FM 7-22
Chapter 10-1, 2020)”. Developing spiritual resilience constitutes providing religious
services to Soldiers wherever they are, and spiritual counseling for those who wish to
explore their faith deeper. Spiritual growth among the unit deeply effects all areas of
operations, improving the overall function processes and resiliency.
To close, developing a physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually resilient
squad is a significant asset to an organization of any kind, and should be a high priority
for any unit. Nurturing and growing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for
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resilience training across the unit to make every squad into a superb asset, has the
potential to drastically lower causalities of any kind and markedly improve productivity
and Soldier welfare.
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References
FM 7-22 OCT 26, 2012, Chapter 3 Section 4
Rosa, P. & Zahid, A. (2023). The Role of Resilience in Mental Health: Nurturing Inner
Strength in Challenging Times. Department of Public health, University of
California
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371043762_The_Role_of_Resilience_i
n_Mental_Health_Nurturing_Inner_Strength_in_Challenging_Times