Resiliency: A Reflection Journal

Running head: RESILIENCY1
Resiliency: A Reflection Journal
Student Name
College/University Affiliation
RESILIENCY

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Resiliency: A Reflection Journal
In recent years, US Marine Corps has developed a new concept about overall fitness: resiliency. In contrast to a conventional, physically-centered approach to fitness, US Marine Corps has increasingly emphasized on a holistic approach to fitness balancing out mind, body and spirit requirements. The growing body of research, coupled by battlefield experiences, has given expression to a fuller understanding of fitness in and beyond battlespace. Specifically, US Marine Corps has developed an integrated stress model in order to enable leaders to manage physical and non-physical stressors Marines encounter, or are likely to do, in more life-threatening battlespace in urban environments. The model – made up of “Strengthen,” “Mitigate,” “Identify,” “Treat,” and “Reintegrate” – is, I have come to learn, major break from earlier practices US Marine Corps has adopted to manage stressors pre-, during and post-combat. Indeed, accounting for mental and spiritual consequences of war – as evidenced in zoning stress responses and outcomes into Green “Ready,” Yellow “Reacting,” Orange “Injured,” and Red “Ill” – is only a reflection of such more nuanced understanding of stress – and, for that matter, resiliency – in battlespace and beyond.
Then again, so much has occurred in recent wars, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as to alter US Marine Corps understanding of physical fitness in new deep ways. If anything, functional fitness has come to replace physical fitness as as more holistic – and effective – approach to Mari...