Emirati Parents’ Attitudes toward the Military and National Service in the United Arab Emirates

Compulsory national service for male citizens presents the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces with an opportunity to recruit future military officers. Research showed that parental attitudes towards the military, manifested through their communication with youths, are likely to influence youths’ decision on a military career. Hence this study examined the attitudes of Emirati parents on the UAE military and national service; particularly parental perceptions of the military work environment; support of a military career for their children; and concerns about national service. Surveys, individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 59 Emirati parents. It found that most participants held the positive view that the military work environment helps attainment of professional goals but were uncertain about personal goals and workplace conditions. Also, more participants were supportive of a military career for sons than daughters. It also identified the basis for parental confidence about enlistment as patriotism and development of positive character traits but main concerns were the exposure to harsh training conditions and threat to life during enlistment. Recommendations were provided for better engagement by the UAE military with Emirati parents and the community.

Rise to Power

This chapter offers a reconstruction of Jovian’s rise to imperial power after Julian died in the Persian heartland. A few hours after Julian’s death, the army generals, the commanders of the legions and cavalry squadrons, as well as high civil officials assembled at the dawn of June 27, 363, to elect a successor. After the praetorian prefect Salutius had declined the emperorship and no agreement could be reached on a suitable candidate, the imperial guardsmen (protectores) put their commander (primicerius domesticorum) Jovian forward as the new emperor. He was soon accepted by the generals, high officials, and the complete army as their new ruler. Although sometimes argued otherwise, Jovian’s elevation to the throne was legitimate according to the primary sources. According to the Christian sources, Jovian initially refused to became emperor (recusatio imperii). Although Ammianus Marcellinus mentions that he was unfit for the emperorship, it is argued that Jovian’s background, his family connections (his own father Varronianus and his father-in-law Lucillianus), as well as his own military career, made him eligible for the emperorship. Nevertheless, Jovian was a compromise candidate and was made emperor not for his dynamic leadership, but in the expectation that he would work in collaboration with the senior staff (the men who had elected him) to get the army out of Persia and to lead the soldiers back to Roman territory.

Upper Gastrointestinal Manifestations of Crohn’s Disease: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment of an Uncommon Presentation of Crohn’s Disease

ABSTRACT Esophagogastroduodenoileal involvement of Crohn’s disease (CD) is uncommon; less than 5% of adult patients will suffer from this condition, although this diagnosis is likely underestimated given the lack of routine evaluation of the upper gastrointestinal tract in the absence of symptoms. An interesting differential, including sarcoidosis, eosinophilic gastroenteritis, tuberculosis, and Brunner’s gland hyperplasia, should be considered. The consequences of this diagnosis can have profound impacts on the military career of a soldier. Learning objectives of this case report include workup, differential, diagnosis, and treatment of esophagogastroduodenoileal involvement of CD, as well as discussing the psychological effects of this diagnosis and impact on an individual’s military career.

The Essence, Content and Structure of Cadets’ Readiness to Make a Conscious Choice of a Military Career

В статье рассматривается актуальная проблема формирования готовности кадет к осознанному выбору военной профессии в условиях кадетского образования. Анализ отчетов о результатах самообследования федеральных государственных казенных общеобразовательных учреждений кадетского типа за 2019 и 2020 годы показал, что количество кадет-выпускников, поступивших в военные вузы, невысоко, а оставшихся после первого года обучения в военном вузе — с каждым годом снижается по причине их низкой адаптации и самоопределенности в дальнейшей военной службе. Все это актуализирует проблему формирования готовности кадет к осознанному выбору военной профессии в условиях кадетского образования. В статье приводятся результаты анализа психолого-педагогической литературы, позволившего авторам выявить сущность, содержание и структуру готовности к деятельности в целом и готовности кадет к осознанному выбору военной профессии в частности. Дается авторское определение готовности кадет к осознанному выбору военной профессии как интегративного качества личности, которое включает в себя положительную установку, целостную систему ценностно-ориентированных, когнитивных, эмоционально-волевых, операционно-поведенческих характеристик личности, способствующих осознанному выбору военной профессии. Описываются педагогические условия формирования данной готовности, критерии и показатели ее сформированности с учетом специфики подготовки кадет в образовательных учреждениях кадетского типа. По мнению авторов, обобщенные результаты данного исследования могут послужить некоторыми ориентирами в организации индивидуализированной и дифференцированной профориентационной работы с кадетами. The article treats a relevant issue of ensuring cadets’ readiness to make a conscious choice of a military career. The analysis of cadets’ self-assessment that was held in federal military schools in 2019-2020 shows that the number of cadets who apply to military universities is rather low and the number of students who drop out of a military university after their first year is constantly increasing, which can be explained by cadets’ low readiness to make a conscious choice of a military career. The article defines cadets’ readiness to make a conscious choice of a military career as the entirety of personality traits and positive guidelines, a comprehensive system of values, and a comprehensive system of cognitive, emotional, volitional and behavioural characteristics which enable one to make a conscious choice of a military career. The article describes educational conditions that serve as a prerequisite for the formation of cadets’ readiness to make such a choice. It analyzes criteria that can be used to assess whether cadets are ready to make a conscious choice. The authors believe that the results of the research can be used as guidelines for individual and differentiated instruction of cadets.

Preliminary Study of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica

The pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica are an understudied yet influential group of texts surviving in Arabic that claim to record conversations between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. I propose a ninth-century dating for these texts on the basis of textual and contextual evidence. In them, Aristotle instructs Alexander on two major subjects to aid his royal pupil’s military career and personal life: the cosmos, the genesis of everything in it, and astral magic. This study provides a preliminary analysis of the texts’ manuscripts and content, discussing what makes them Aristotelian and Hermetic and highlighting the resonances of Zoroastrian astro-cosmogenic doctrines.

Acceptance matters: Disengagement and attrition among LGBT personnel in the U.S. military

LAY SUMMARY The U.S. military has undergone several changes in policies toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) service members over the past decade. Some LGBT service members report continued victimization and fear of disclosing their LGBT identity, which can affect retention of LGBT personnel serving in the military. However, there is little research on this population. This study uses data from a survey funded by the U.S. Department of Defense (2017–2018) and completed by 544 active-duty service members (296 non-LGBT and 248 LGBT) to better understand the career intentions of LGBT service members. Of transgender service members, 33% plan to leave the military upon completion of their commitment, compared with 20% of cisgender LGB and 13% of non-LGBT service members. LGBT service members were twice as likely as non-LGBT service members to be undecided as to their military career path. Lower perceived acceptance of LGBT service members in the workplace was associated with a higher risk of leaving among LGBT service members. Lower perceived unit cohesion was associated with attrition risk for all members, regardless of LGBT status. These findings suggest that the U.S. military can do more to improve its climate of LGBT acceptance to prevent attrition.

Agrippa d’Aubigné

Born in 1552, Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné was taken by his father, at the age of eight, to look upon the severed heads of Huguenots executed for their part in the failed Conspiracy of Amboise. The spectacle marked the child, stirring his devotion to the Protestant cause, which determined his whole life. His military career included serving in the first three Wars of Religion under the prince de Condé, and then in the army of Henri of Navarre. When wounded at the battle of Casteljaloux (1576), Aubigné experienced a religious vision, which, he claims, was the first inspiration for his epic poem Les Tragiques, written and revised over some forty years, before its publication in 1616. His best-known work for modern readers—monumental, and by turn dramatic, satirical, and deeply moving—it is above all imbued with his Calvinist faith in the ultimate triumph of divine purpose, despite the horrific scars wrought by the civil wars. Yet Aubigné’s personal relationship with other leading Protestants was often tense. When Henri IV converted to Catholicism in 1593, Aubigné felt bitterly betrayed and retreated for a while to his family and his provincial estates in Poitou, where he penned his Lettre à Madame, urging the king’s sister, Catherine de Bourbon, to hold firm to her Protestant faith. The need to make his voice heard and shape the Protestant cause impelled him, however, to return repeatedly to the political fray, albeit with increasing disappointment. The accession of Louis XIII and the Regency of Marie de’ Medici fueled his anger against those Protestants willing to appease the new regime. Never inclined to hide his views, he indulged his full satirical venom in his novel Les Aventures du baron de Fæneste (1617–1619), while the seditious views voiced in the first two volumes of his Histoire Universelle (1618–1619) saw this work condemned to be burned. In the last decade of his life, Aubigné took refuge in Geneva (1620–1630), where his marriage with Renée Burlamacchi brought companionship and literary support, not least in her role, after his death, of ensuring his many manuscripts were safely transmitted to the pastor Tronchin, his literary executor. Aubigné may appear as intransigent, and easily moved to anger and scorn, but he was also devoted to his family, as shown in his manuscript Sa Vie à ses enfants, and he had a striking regard for women who stood fast for their Protestant faith.