Off-Duty Resilience: Re-orienting Tourism, Leisure and Recreation in the US Army BOSS program

Understanding how US imperial strategy is sustained by tourism and militarism requires an account of how American soldiers learn to understand themselves in relation to a variety of marginalized others. This paper explores how the US Army’s ‘Ready and Resilient’ (R2) campaign constructs soldier / other relations by mobilizing off-duty time through the ‘Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers’ (BOSS) program. BOSS’s first two platforms of ‘Well-Being’ and ‘Community Service’ feed into the R2 agenda by producing highly-skilled leaders (who govern a disengaged rank and file) and benevolent humanitarians (who provide charity for abject civilians). When these dispositions are transposed into BOSS’s third platform of ‘Recreation and Leisure’, soldiers turn away from the goals of leadership and humanitarianism to reveal the privileged narcissism underscoring the R2 agenda. This self-focus is intensified by familiar power relations in the tourism industry as soldiers pursue self-improvement by commodifying, distancing and effacing local tourist workers. Using the BOSS program as a case study, this paper critically interrogates how the US Army is assimilating off-duty practices of tourism, leisure and recreation into the wider program of resilience training.

The Dark Side of Leadership: Dealing with a Narcissistic Boss

Some of the defining characteristics of narcissists include a grandiose sense of self-importance, preoccupation with success and power, a sense of infallibility, and a supreme confidence in their ability and intelligence. Ironically, many of these characteristics are rewarded in business organizations, which may explain why there seems to be so many narcissists in management positions. Assuming we will be dealing with narcissists throughout our career, it makes sense for us to understand what makes them tick, and more importantly what we can do to work with them in a constructive manner.

Na 50 Nachlass Arthur Schopenhauer - 'Schopenhauer-Archiv', 1001 - Bitte von O.E. Kuck um Zusendung der Briefe von Adam von Boss an Arthur Schopenhauer

u.. Biographie; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; Nachlass;

Sir Boss /

Mode of access: Internet.

George W. Aldridge, big boss, small city,

Bibliography: p. 152-153.

The boss; the story of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Mode of access: Internet.

First Tournament of Roses Game, Michigan Vs. Stanford. Pasadena, January 1, 1902. Score - Michigan 49, Stanford 0. "Boss" Weeks handing off to Neil Snow.

["Tackle-back play, Weeks handing-off to Snow]

Quarterback "Boss" Weeks and coach Fielding Yost, UM Football, 1901

[Yost is wearing his undergraduate Lafayette College sweater]