MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCE IN THE MILITARY

Multicultural Experience in the Military

Multicultural Experience in the Military

Throughout my life, I have enjoyed numerous opportunities to travel to different countries. These experiences have sparked within me an undying fascination, love, and appreciation for other countries, people, and cultures. After visiting Dominican Republic missions trip for a week and volunteering with underprivileged children in Virginia, I realized the extreme poverty and difficult situations that other people face every day and was struck with a desire to help those less fortunate than myself. With being in the military, I have had the opportunity to live in Scotland and Japan, and I have also visited Singapore and Malaysia. These trips expanded my mind, helping me to realize and appreciate the vast diversity of our world (Lynn, 2003).

The significance of multicultural competence will not be overemphasized granted that military psychologists now perform all over the world and are anticipated to heal active duty staff, their family constituents, and persons who came across from numerous distinct countries. Additionally, a little, but important piece of recruited military constituents is not U.S. citizens. Provision of services to this varied assembly can be advanced through efforts to enhance the multicultural competence of military providers. On the military base in Japan, the population of Filipinos and African Americans far outweighed my own white ethnicity's numbers. During my two years at Korean base, I was surrounded by many international army individuals and enjoyed hearing the multi-lingual conversations around me and making friends with a variety of people who could share their language and culture with me. I was blessed to be assigned to the International residence when I transferred to Virginia, and there I made numerous friends from all over the world, including my Koreans. I attended my friends' holiday celebrations and brought them to visit ...