Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

This first lesson welcomes you into the Royal Kaharagian Army and tells you what you are joining. It explains why the Principality has an army and what that army is for, what it means to become a soldier, the oath you take and what you promise by it, and the values and standards that will govern your conduct from this day forward. It is the foundation of everything else in Phase One: a soldier who understands what they serve, and how they must conduct themselves, has the heart of the matter before learning a single drill.

A word on how to read it. Phase One is the front door of your training, a little of everything, and this lesson is the first room you step into. It does not try to make you a scholar of the State or of military ethics; it teaches what a recruit must actually know on day one, in plain terms, and points you to where each subject is set out in full. Read it to grasp the essentials. The depth comes later, and the lesson tells you where to find it.

By the end you will be able to explain what the Royal Kaharagian Army exists to do, describe what it means to serve as a soldier of the Principality, state the substance of the Oath of Allegiance and to whom and to what it is sworn, and name the Army's core values and standards and say in plain terms what each looks like in a soldier.

This is the beginning of your training. The subjects it introduces are set out in full in the Basic Training Manual, in Module 01 (The State, Legitimate Force, and the Soldier) and Module 10 (Ethics and the Law of Armed Conflict), and they are taught in depth in the Phase Two courses on leadership and on the law of armed conflict; here you meet them for the first time.

Key Terms

The Principality of Kaharagia: the sovereign state you serve, and the Crown that heads it.
The Crown: the State in its enduring form, headed by the Sovereign, H.R.H. The Prince; what a soldier's allegiance is owed to, above any person, party, or government of the day.
The Royal Kaharagian Army: the land service of the Principality, a small, lightly armed, humanitarian and home-focused army in the British and Commonwealth tradition.
Service, not contract: the principle that a soldier places the interests of the Crown and the Principality before their own, rather than trading a fixed effort for a fixed return.
Unlimited liability: the principle, unique to military service, by which a soldier undertakes, in the last analysis, to risk themselves for the good of others and the State.
Apolitical and impartial: the principle that the Army serves the whole lawful State and takes no part in party politics, so that it can be trusted by all.
The Oath of Allegiance: the solemn promise, taken on joining, by which a member binds themselves to the lawful service of the Crown and the State.
Core values and standards: the settled beliefs and benchmarks that govern a soldier's conduct at all times, on duty and off.
Citizen in uniform: the idea that a soldier remains a national of the Principality with an ordinary life and rights, while being held to a higher standard of conduct because of the uniform they wear.

Why the Principality has an army

Every state, however small, has the right and the duty to provide for its own security and the welfare of its people. The Army is one of the means by which the Principality does so. Understand from the first what kind of army you are joining, because it shapes everything. The Royal Kaharagian Army is small, lightly armed, humanitarian, and home-focused by nature. Its likeliest work is not high-intensity war but the service of its own people and others in need: search and rescue, disaster relief, the winter welfare operation, ceremonial duty, aid to the civil power, and standing ready when a crisis exceeds what the ordinary services can manage. It follows the British and Commonwealth military tradition in its structure, its terms, and its bearing.

Hold the Army's purpose in two parts. The first is defence: the Principality, like any state, keeps a land force so that it is never wholly without the means to protect itself, its order, and its people. The second, and in peacetime far the larger, is help: daily readiness to be of use when storm, flood, fire, or hardship overtakes the ordinary services. The RKA is young; it has no battle honours and invents none. So the honest picture of the work ahead is not the battlefield but the river in spate, the search on the hillside, the cold night when someone must stand a watch so that others may sleep safe. That is the kind of army this is, and it is no smaller a calling for it.

Its strength is not numbers but the quality and discipline of its people. A small, lightly armed force cannot win by mass and does not try to; what it can hold in full measure is the character and cohesion of its soldiers, available to a small force exactly as much as to a large one. You are joining a force whose first instinct is to be a steadying, helping presence, and that is something to take pride in.

What it means to be a soldier

To become a soldier is to take on a particular kind of service, different from any ordinary job. Be exact about the difference, because you have known ordinary work and will reach for it as the model unless taught otherwise. A soldier serves the Crown and the people of the Principality, and that service is offered as service, not contract. A contract trades a fixed effort for a fixed return: you give the agreed hours, and what lies beyond is yours to withhold. Service has no such clause, because the thing being served, the safety and welfare of the Principality and its people, does not come in fixed units. A contract asks what is my share; service asks what does the task require. That single change of question is the heart of it.

With that comes the principle that sets military service apart from every other calling: the acceptance, in the last analysis, of unlimited liability. A soldier undertakes to risk themselves, if it should ever come to that, for the good of others and the State. For this humanitarian force, understand it honestly rather than borrow it wholesale from larger armies built to wage war. It is less a readiness to do battle than a commitment to the people the Army protects so complete that it is not capped at the edge of personal interest: the soldier who wades into a rising river to reach a stranded family, or stands a long cold watch so others may sleep, has accepted that the task may cost more than they are paid for, on behalf of people they have never met. In return, the Crown and the Principality owe you a corresponding duty of care: sound training, fair treatment, and good leadership. The bargain is not one-sided.

Understand too that the soldier is the servant of the lawful State and stands outside its politics. The Army serves the Crown and the whole Principality, never a party or a faction; it is apolitical and impartial, and that is a large part of why it can be trusted by all. A neutral, non-partisan force can serve faithfully under any lawful administration, because it serves the State rather than any one segment of public life. To wear the uniform is to set aside private partisanship in the Army's service. You keep your opinions as a national, but you do not bring them into the ranks.

The Oath of Allegiance

The moment you enter the Army's service and become a member is the taking of the Oath of Allegiance. By it you bind yourself, solemnly and freely, to the lawful service of the Crown and the State of Kaharagia, and the whole of a soldier's duty flows from it. You do not need its full legal wording yet; you need its substance, which has three parts.

First, you promise to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to the Crown, that is, to the Sovereign, H.R.H. The Prince, and through the Crown to the enduring State. Second, you promise to defend the Crown and the Principality, honestly and as duty requires. Third, you promise to obey the lawful orders of those set over you. Two things about it matter from the first day.

The allegiance is to the Crown as the enduring head of the State, and through it to the Principality and its people, not to any individual for their own sake, nor to a government, a party, or an interest. This is why the Army can serve faithfully through any change of administration: its loyalty is pledged to the State in its lasting form, which does not change with the politics of the moment.

And the obedience promised is to lawful orders. The oath does not bind you to an unlawful or manifestly improper command; if such an order ever came, your duty would be to decline it and to report the wrong, and that is disciplined initiative, not insubordination. This is also the answer to the old question of who guards the guards: the Army is held in check not chiefly by force but by its subordination to lawful authority, by the rule of law, and by the values this lesson teaches. The courses ahead will teach you what a lawful order is and what to do when one is not. The oath is the door through which you pass from civilian to soldier, and it is worth understanding before you reach it.

The values and the standards

How a soldier conducts themselves is not left to chance or to private taste; it is set out in the Army's core values and standards, which you will live by from this day and which run through every course you take. Everyone already has some sense of right and wrong; what an army needs in addition is common ground, a set of beliefs every soldier can assume in every other without testing it first, so that when you hand a task or your safety into a comrade's keeping, you rely on a standard the whole force is known to hold. That is why the values are declared, shared, and taught from the first day.

There are six core values. Learn them now. Each is given with a line on what it looks like in a soldier, because a value you can recite but not recognise teaches nothing.

Courage, both physical, the will to face danger and hardship, and moral, the readiness to do right at personal cost; moral courage underpins all the rest. In a soldier: speaking up when something is unsafe or wrong, even when it is easier to stay quiet.
Discipline, the subordination of personal wants to the collective good, at its best as self-discipline. In a soldier: doing the dull last checks, and keeping the standard, when no one is watching.
Respect for Others, owed to everyone, comrade, civilian, and even an enemy, on their merit and their need. In a soldier: treating a frightened or difficult member of the public with the patience you would want for your own family.
Integrity, being honest and true, and standing up for what is right. In a soldier: giving the true account, and owning a mistake, when a smoother version would serve you better.
Loyalty, owed upward, downward, and sideways, and never blind. In a soldier: arguing your case before a decision, then giving the agreed plan your whole effort, and never covering a wrong.
Selfless Commitment, putting the mission and the team before oneself. In a soldier: taking the heavier load, eating last, finishing the task that brings you no credit.

A simple way to hold them together:

   THE SIX CORE VALUES  (who we are)        WHAT EACH LOOKS LIKE IN A SOLDIER
   ----------------------------------       ---------------------------------------
   Courage             ................     does right under pressure; speaks up
   Discipline          ................     keeps the standard, watched or not
   Respect for Others  ................     treats every person on merit and need
   Integrity           ................     tells the truth; owns the mistake
   Loyalty             ................     faithful up, down, and across; not blind
   Selfless Commitment ................     puts the team and the task first

   THE THREE STANDARDS  (what we may do) -- an ascending ladder:
   LAWFUL        "may I"      is it allowed, in purpose and in method?
   APPROPRIATE   "should I"   does it keep the trust and respect we depend on?
   PROFESSIONAL  "done well"  is it done properly, to standard?

Over the values sit three standards by which conduct is judged: that it be lawful, appropriate, and professional, that is, what you are allowed to do, what you should do, and what is done properly. They are a ladder, each rung a stiffer test than the one below. A soldier helping a household after a storm may take nothing and so pass lawful; may still make a mocking remark in front of the distressed owner and fail appropriate, though no law was broken; and, even if courteous, may handle the salvaged goods so carelessly that the family is left worse off, failing professional while the lower two held. Asking only "is it allowed" is standing on the bottom rung and calling it the top. The Army sets the bar above merely lawful because much that is legal still corrodes trust, and a humanitarian force lives or dies by the trust of the people it serves.

This is where you meet the soldier as a citizen in uniform. You remain a national of the Principality, with a life and rights of your own beyond the Army; service limits your liberty only so far as the task genuinely requires. But because you wear the uniform and are trusted with the State's authority, you are held to a higher standard than the law alone demands, on duty and off, because a soldier who is one person in uniform and another out of it has not understood that the values do not clock off. Together the values and standards are the character the Army asks of you, the same whether you are on parade, on a welfare round, or at home. They are introduced here and taught in full in the Phase Two Foundations of Military Leadership and Law of Armed Conflict courses; for now, learn them by heart, because they are who you are about to become.

What is expected of you from day one

Before you have learned a single skill, certain things are expected of you, and they follow from everything above. Be where you are told to be, on time, and properly turned out: a team that cannot rely on its members for the small things cannot rely on them for the large ones. Do what you are lawfully told, willingly and at once, and ask if you do not understand, because obedience here is active and intelligent, not grudging. Hold yourself to the standard when no one is watching. Treat every person, comrade and stranger alike, on their merit and their need. Tell the truth, including about your own mistakes. And take care of the people beside you, because in this Army you are never only looking after yourself.

None of this requires training; it requires only the decision to be the kind of soldier the values describe, and that decision is yours from day one.

In Practice: The First Day

Picture your own first day. You arrive a civilian, with your own life and habits, and over the weeks of Phase One you are made into something you were not: a soldier of the Principality. The change is not chiefly in what you can do, though you will learn much, but in what you are. Trace it through that first day. The bell goes earlier than you would choose, and discipline is already asked of you in the simple act of rising on time and turning out properly, the small thing on which the large ones rest. An instructor gives an order whose reason you do not yet see, and you learn that obedience here is willing and immediate. A comrade you have just met struggles with their kit, and selfless commitment is the unremarkable decision to help rather than to watch. None of it is dramatic, and all of it is the values, lived for the first time in the only place they are ever really lived: the ordinary, unwatched moment.

Everything else this course teaches, the drill, the fitness, the fieldcraft, the first aid, rests on this. The recruit who grasps, from the first day, what they are joining and what kind of person they are becoming has already taken the most important step of Phase One.

Check Your Understanding

What kind of army is the Royal Kaharagian Army, and what is it most likely to be called upon to do? Why is its strength said to lie in the quality and discipline of its people rather than in numbers?
Explain what it means to serve as "service, not contract", what the principle of unlimited liability adds, and why the soldier is apolitical. To what, and to whom, is the Oath of Allegiance sworn, and why does it bind a soldier only to lawful orders?
Name the Army's six core values and its three standards, and for two values of your choice say what each looks like in a soldier. What does it mean to be a "citizen in uniform", and why does the lesson say that becoming a soldier is a change in what you are, not only in what you can do?

Reflection (write a short paragraph): You are at the start of becoming a soldier of the Principality. Think about why you have joined, and about the kind of soldier you intend to be. Of the six core values, which do you think will most be tested in you, and what will you hold on to when it is? What does it mean to you that this Army's first instinct is to help, and that you are held to a higher standard than the law alone requires?

Summary

The Royal Kaharagian Army is a small, lightly armed, humanitarian, home-focused army in the British and Commonwealth tradition; its purpose is the defence of the Principality and, above all in peacetime, the help of its own people and others in need. Its strength is the quality and discipline of its people, not numbers, and it is young, with no battle honours.
To be a soldier is to serve the Crown and the people as service, not contract: a contract asks "what is my share", service asks "what does the task require". It is carried under unlimited liability, here best understood as a commitment to the people the Army protects that is not capped at personal interest, in return for a duty of care; and the soldier stands apolitical and impartial in the lawful State's service.
The Oath of Allegiance binds a soldier, freely and solemnly, to be faithful to the Crown, to defend the Crown and the Principality, and to obey lawful orders. The allegiance is to the Crown as the enduring State, not to any person, party, or government, and obedience is owed only to lawful orders; it is the door from civilian to soldier.
The Army's six core values are Courage, Discipline, Respect for Others, Integrity, Loyalty, and Selfless Commitment, each recognisable by what it looks like in a soldier, governed by the three ascending standards of being lawful, appropriate, and professional. The soldier is a citizen in uniform, holding ordinary rights but held to a higher standard, on duty and off.
These foundations are set out in full in Basic Training Manual Modules 01 and 10 and taught in depth in the Phase Two Foundations of Military Leadership and Law of Armed Conflict courses; becoming a soldier is, above all, a change in what you are.

Joining the Army: the State, the Soldier, the Oath, and the Values