What Is Accountability in the Army

What is accountability and the definition: (DOD) The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care, and safekeeping.

Why is accountability important to the Army? Accountability is a very important part of an enlisted and a NCO’s job. The enlisted soldier is responsible for all items issued to issued to him weather it be a weapon, NVG’s, clothes, a vehicle, or some TA-50, a feild manual, medication (morphine, demoral, or any narcotics), BII, etc. The NCO’s responsibility is to make sure that the soldier is accountable for the items and has eyes on these items when need, so that he can report it to his higher command. Accountability also includes the most important piece of equipment the soldier him or herself. Anything can and will happen especially in combat, that’s why the team member should make sure that the team or squad leader know where the soldier and his or her equipment is at all times. The Army spends a lot of money on equipment and belongings for the soldiers, so the Army expects to know where its equipment is. No matter what someone is always responsible for equipment in the Army. It goes to the highest officer to the lowest enlisted personal in the chain of command and back up again. Like in combat when there is a “code Red” the soldier knows that at a given and safe time he or she should get to the rally point, predestined by his or her chain of command, that way he or she and his or her equipment can be accounted for. Accountability is used in many different ways, for example knowing if something is missing you could easy look at the accountability report to see if it was there before. If someone stole something or a piece of equipment is lost then you could look at your accountability report to see what piece of equipment is missing from the inventory. A soldier must understand that no one will care about his or hers property as much as their leaders do. When we do a chain of command change over, we must pull 100% of all equipment that belongs to our platoon and show that we have everything that was hand receipted to us. The leaders that hold our sub-hand receipts will be a mixed bag: some will be great at accounting for their property; some will not. So as a soldier I should personally ensure that things are done right .Certainly, the change-of-command inventory is a critical part of property accountability. However, a commander is less likely to have problems with property during the change-of-command inventory when everyone's attention is on it and the inventory is the commander's only responsibility.

Assertions of responsibility can mean a number of different things. We might be making a judgment of someone’s character, implying that a soldier can be trusted to act responsibly. We might refer to a person’s responsibilities, as expressed by “my responsibilities in my job are…” or “Tom has a lot of responsibilities”. We might mean that someone was responsible for bringing something about. But these responses don’t take us far towards a satisfactory answer to the question “What do we mean when we talk about responsibilities”. To advance our understanding of responsible action we need to know who is responsible, and for what.

The question “Who is responsible?” has both practical and theoretical aspects. As a practical question, it aims to identify the responsible party: causally, as in “Who is responsible for the stain on the carpet?”, and for roles, as in “Who is responsible for the web site?” When asked theoretically it aims to establish what sorts of entities are properly ascribed responsibilities. Can only individuals be properly ascribed responsibilities, or can organizations also be held responsible? If the latter, then what sorts