Army Civilian Corps

Necessary for the Fight

By Tamara Hullender, PhD

Article published on: July 1st, 2025 in the Army Civilian Professional Journal Issue 1

Read Time: < 8 mins

The Department of Defense Expeditionary Civilian program allows civilians to apply capability, experience, and knowledge as a crucial part of helping DOD accomplish its mission abroad. (Photo courtesy of DOD)

Leaders in the Army profession remain an irreplaceable competitive advantage toward achieving the Army’s goal to deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars. Since its inception, the U.S. Army has employed civilians to maintain ready, prompt, and sustained land dominance. Defined as a trusted vocation of soldiers and Army civilians, members of the Army profession possess collective expertise in the ethical design, generation, support, and application of landpower.¹

Both soldiers and civilians are defined as trusted Army professionals providing honorable service in defense of the Nation and functioning as experts in the performance of duty.

The division of the Army profession into two communities of practice, soldiers in the profession of arms and civilians in the Army Civilian Corps, defines the two sources of talent that perform the mission, but also establishes their common identity, ethics, and the leadership inherent to their membership in this profession. Two communities ensure a comprehensive approach to national defense and provide a mechanism to effectively execute the mission. The communities have complementary interdependent roles: Soldiers who are trained and ready for combat and military operations and Army civilians who provide essential support services, expertise, leadership, and continuity across the force. Each community focuses on their specialized role, thus enhancing overall effectiveness while increasing capability and readiness, requisite elements of lethality and deterrence.² Army civilians stand ready when soldiers experience significant turnover in assignments in addition to their deployment cycles. Moreover, the Army civilian community of practice possesses institutional knowledge and expertise necessary for long-term planning, management, and the execution of complex projects while providing stability and continuity. For some roles, employing civilians is more cost-effective than training and maintaining a standing force of soldiers with necessary capabilities. Therefore, Army civilians who provide critical necessary skills without the need for extensive military training, free up soldiers to focus on combat readiness and operations.

Army Civilian Professionals: Trusted and Necessary

Both soldiers and civilians are defined as trusted Army professionals providing honorable service in defense of the Nation and functioning as experts in the performance of duty.³ At the time of this writing, the Army Civilian Corps constituted 23 percent of the Army workforce, numbered nearly 260,000, performed over five hundred occupations and contributed significantly to all aspects of the Army’s mission.⁴ Army civilian professionals comprised 72 percent to 97 percent—an overwhelming majority—of all employees in four major commands: Army Materiel Command, Army Corps of Engineers, Army Reserve Command, and Army Medical Command.⁵ Senior leaders of these commands shared their thoughts on Army civilians at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in 2023. Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, then deputy commander of Army Materiel Command, noted that “In all commands, we have dedicated civilians sitting next to military commanders, which represents the power of the civilian workforce in these commands.”⁶He underscored the value of the civilian workforce by adding, “we need to approach the development of our civilian workforce in the same way we approach the development of our general officer corps.”⁷ At the same panel discussion, Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais, Training and Doctrine Command deputy commander and chief of staff (recently retired) stated, “The Army would not be the Army without you [Army civilians].”⁸ Clearly, these senior leaders recognized the commitment, contributions, and competence of the Army Civilian Corps.

Across the Army enterprise, Army civilian professionals provide technical and specialized competence enabling all levels of readiness and lethality, but also directly contributing to tactical and strategic operations.⁹ Fundamentally, Army civilian professionals are a necessary workforce with demonstrated leadership who provide expertise, continuity, and enable mission capability.

Leading with Expertise

Army civilian professionals present as a skilled and educated workforce providing leadership and competence across the Army enterprise. Their expertise spans logistics, healthcare, personnel management, IT support, and facilities/equipment maintenance, ensuring soldiers remain operationally ready for both immediate and future challenges. The inclusion of the Army Civilian Corps in the Army profession enables leaders to direct-hire willing and proficient talent to fulfill mission-critical positions without the added expense of training and education.

In 2022, the most recent data on the Army Civilian Corps showed that Army civilian professionals who have completed a college degree equaled 64 percent of the total Army civilian workforce and 70 percent had completed at least some college.¹⁰This report revealed a significantly more educated workforce than the average U.S. working age adult, of whom only 46 percent have completed a college degree.¹¹ In the contracting, professional services, science and engineering career fields, greater than 80 percent of Army civilian professionals had achieved a college degree, as would be expected. More interesting is that Army civilian professionals in the logistics, installation management, and security career fields presented college completion rates of at least one-third, and 40 percent to 50 percent had completed at least some college. An educated Army civilian workforce strengthens productivity and creativity, allowing for adaptability and innovation within the increasingly dynamic operational environment.

Army Civilian Corps Creed (Graphics by Rebecca Westfall, U.S. Army Medical Command; Image courtesy of DVIDS)

To keep its lethal competitive edge, the Army requires the expertise and leadership that the Army Civilian Corps provides. The largest cohort of Army civilian professionals currently align with immediate and near-term readiness and perform essential functions across the force.¹² Readiness, in this context, refers to the ability of the Army to respond to operational demands quickly and efficiently. Army civilians contribute to readiness by ensuring the infrastructure, systems, and resources are functioning effectively and efficiently. They provide expertise and leadership critical to the success of military missions and their contributions significantly enhance the Army’s ability to always maintain a state of readiness and lethality. A capable and experienced Army Civilian Corps is complementary of its uniformed counterparts in the profession of arms as both communities of practice, in mutually supportive ways, honorably fulfill their oaths of service.

Leading through Continuity

Dr. Margaret Partlo swears in 29 August 2022 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. (Image courtesy of author)

The Army Civilian Corps’ Creed states that Army civilian professionals provide leadership, stability, and continuity. These three tenants are intertwined and rooted in the leadership that a stable civilian workforce affords the Army enterprise. Continuity is defined as “the preservation of institutional memory and experience.”¹³ By providing specialized knowledge, maintaining essential systems and operations, and providing leadership, particularly during transitions and crises, Army civilians play a critical role in keeping the Army operational, reducing redundancies, and increasing efficiencies. In many organizations, Army civilians provide a consistent presence thus preventing the potential disruption of uniformed personnel turnover. The longevity of service given by members of the Army Civilian Corps demonstrates commitment but also sustains the mission and focus of the enterprise when the profession of arms is rotated through various assignments and developmental opportunities. Recent data shows that over 130,000 (54 percent) of Army civilian professionals had six or more years of service and nearly 97,000 (25 percent) had been in the Army Civilian Corps for ten or more years.¹⁴ The reciprocal nature of the interaction between the two communities–profession of arms, and the Army Civilian Corps–is exemplified in the sharing of information and experience that occurs as the one community promotes continuity and the other conveys unique and diverse perspectives. New learning is incorporated into the members of the Army Civilian Corps and becomes integral to institutional memory, is shared at all levels, and advances the enterprise as a learning organization.

The continued service of veterans, who constitute 50 percent of the Army Civilian Corps, also promotes greater stability and continuity. Some civilian career fields are comprised of more than 70 percent prior-service members who bring extensive institutional knowledge and demonstrated skills in their fields, usually obtained in the profession of arms.¹⁵ Of equal importance is the other half of the Civilian Corps that has no prior military service. These professionals provide leadership and continuity as a majority of the workforce in several mission-critical career fields, and their longevity is at equal pace with their veteran counterparts. As a cohort of the Army profession, the Army Civilian Corps is committed, experienced, stable, and fundamentally mission critical.

Leadership that Enables Mission Capabilities

At the time this article was written, nearly 92,000 Army civilian professionals were in positions designated as “mission critical.”¹⁶ In other words, these professionals, constituting 39 percent of the Army Civilian Corps, are deemed essential to the successful execution of the Army’s strategic national defense mission. In multiple fields, such as contracting, digital technology, security, intelligence, and education and information sciences, 60 percent to 87 percent of Army civilians are performing work that is mission critical.¹⁷ Their work contributions, alongside the soldiers with whom they serve, enable mission completion, force lethality, and readiness. Bringing technical competence and depth of experience to the fight, Army civilians function as force multipliers. Moreover, greater than one-third of the Army Civilian Corps is employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) positions.¹⁸ These professionals provide indispensable expertise and skills in highly technical arenas critical to multi-domain operations. In many ways, the technical expertise of warfare is now a shared responsibility of Army civilians and soldiers. The essential functions performed by Army civilian professionals significantly promote the accomplishment of the work of the Army vocation. Beyond occupation or position, the sheer number of Army civilian professionals across the enterprise suggests that the Army Civilian Corps, as a community of practice within the Army profession, has, in and of itself, become mission critical. At nearly one-quarter of the Army’s workforce, the Army Civilian Corps is a necessary source of talent, expertise and leadership, providing a vital service to society in defense of the Nation.

Conclusion

This discussion began with the assertion that leaders in the Army profession are the competitive advantage facilitating the achievement of the mission to deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars. As a community of practice within the Army profession, the Army Civilian Corps is integral to that advantage and a necessary workforce providing leadership through expertise, continuity, and enabling mission capabilities. Explaining the groups of people who bring their talent and skills to the Army profession, the Army People Strategy defines Army civilian professionals as those “who form the institutional backbone of the Army and are an integral part of the Army enterprise.”¹⁹ As such, the contributions of the Army Civilian Corps have extended beyond a supporting role as greater numbers of Army civilians perform duties related to tactical and strategic operations and are in deployable or mission-critical positions.

Additionally, many Army civilian professionals provide indispensable technical expertise obtained in the civilian sector or through advanced post-secondary education that complement the warfighting skills of the profession of arms. Ultimately, the strength of the Army profession resides in the relationship between the profession of arms and the Army Civilian Corps. Collectively, both are experts in the performance of duty and responsible stewards of their chosen profession—the Army. Their shared identity as trusted Army professionals, committed to serving honorably in defense of the Nation, unites the two communities of practice. The Army profession—two communities with one mission, and one motto: This we’ll defend.

Notes