change. Soldiers now found the Army more sensitive to quality-of-life issues such as privacy in the barracks, grooming standards, and more variety in the PX and club systems. To retain quality junior enlisted personnel, generous reenlistment bonuses and a peacetime GI Bill were offered.

The initial reaction of the NCO corps to the Modern Volunteer Army was negative. At first glance the changes from a drafted to a volunteer Army seemed to represent a loss of authority for platoon and companylevel NCOs. Rumors abounded that the new Army would be manned by long-haired rebels swilling beer in the barracks. Many of these fears, however, were quickly. dispelled as exaggerations. The reforms brought about by the Modern Volunteer Army dramatically improved

communications up and down the chain of command. The Army initiated an extensive counseling effort at the lowest command levels to ensure that every soldier understood his or her unit's mission and individual role within the unit. At the other end of the chain of command, officers, including corps and army commanders, were made aware of the attitudes and concerns of subordinates at all levels. Local commanders instituted human relations programs to speed responses to legitimate grievances not only from soldiers but also from their spouses. NCOs came to see that the reforms represented not a loss of authority but a different method of applying their own traditional leadership. The result of the new policy of tying discipline to counseling was a better informed and more highly motivated Army.

Throughout the history of the United States Army, instruction has remained a fundamental responsibility of NCOS. The subjects of instruction have always covered the full range of knowledge required by both recruits and experienced soldiers to function in the Army. Since the Revolutionary War the newest soldiers at any post have spent their first months in the Army following the instructions of their NCOs: learning how to wear the uniform, how to make a bed, how to prepare for inspection, how to use and care for weapons, and how to stand guard duty. As the soldier gained experience, he needed more sophisticated skills. But the primary instructor was still an NCO, who led the soldier through squad, platoon, and company tactics and through whatever specialty training he needed in artillery, communications, or other fields. In time many soldiers became NCOS themselves, learning from senior members of the corps. When he or she reached the top NCO rank, there were still lessons to be learned, such as preparation of the morning report, maintenance of company personnel records, and supervision of larger bodies of troops.

As the advance of technology in the twentieth century began to affect the way the Army did almost everything, the functions of NCOs changed dramatically. In addition to exercising their historic role as small unit leaders in the field and instructors in garrison, NCOs became technical specialists. This development set in motion permanent changes in the NCO corps. Trained in essential areas of technical expertise-as radio operators, aircraft maintenance specialists, tank drivers, ordnance specialists, motor pool sergeants, and so forth— NCO specialists became as indispensable as traditional troop leaders. At the same time, the NCO's traditional

role of instructor took on new importance as modern research resulted in an endless stream of new technology.

But before new technology can benefit the Army, it has to be disseminated down the chain of command to individual soldier-specialists. This continuous upgrading of technical skills throughout the enlisted ranks is the responsibility today of every supervising NCO. Before they can instruct their troops in the latest technology, NCOS must learn it themselves at formal schools where they are instructed by other NCOs. The NCOs who begin the process of disseminating new technology are truly "training the trainers."

Over the course of a twenty- or thirty-year career, NCOS in every specialty need periodic refresher training to keep up in their fields. Refresher training amounts to a significant investment by the Army in the career development of each NCO. The loss of such highly trained people would seriously threaten the ability of the Army to carry out its varied missions. To preserve the talents of its NCOs, the Army during the Vietnam War began to emphasize retention, vigorously backing up the campaign with substantial financial benefits and qualityof-life reforms. The "Re-Up!" theme of the 1970s became much more than a slogan in the transition from draft to Modern Volunteer Army, when there was real concern about the loss of specialist NCOs to private industry. By making service in uniform attractive to all elements of the general population, the Army achieved not only the goal of retaining talented NCOS but that of integration as well. Women and minorities moved into large numbers of NCO billets in the Modern Volunteer Army, joining the corps' leadership and becoming role

models for others.

In the Army of the 1970s, the teaching function of NCOS became, like the courses offered, more technical and complex. NCOs had to learn new things and new ways of teaching. Training in all specialties was reorganized and presented in the Tasks-Conditions-Standards format. After explaining what was to be done within a certain specialty (setting out the task), the NCO instructor outlined the conditions under which the task was to be performed, and the standards by which the performance of the soldier was to be judged. The new methodology allowed for individualized training on a more extensive scale than ever before. Soldiers and NCOs could draw "tech tapes" from their unit libraries to remain current in their specialties or to prepare for annual skills and promotion tests.

In addition to their role in introductory and refresher instruction, NCOs also began administering a series of individual and unit tests. The three phases of the Skill Qualification Test (SQT)—common task testing, written test, and hands-on evaluation-determine each soldier's position in the system of five skill levels. NCOs test units under the Army Training Evaluation Program

(ARTEP), which examines each component of a command as well as the entire unit. ARTEP foreshadowed the even more sophisticated evaluation methods of the 1980s, such as MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Equipment System) and BTMS (Battalion Training Management System).

In all of this, there was for NCO students and instructors alike an increased emphasis on professionalism. When the shortage of NCOS developed in the later years of the Vietnam War, tasks that normally would have been carried out by experienced NCOs often were taken over by company grade officers. To prepare NCOs to resume these tasks, instruction was increased, not only in occupational specialties but in rank responsibilities as well. Before or during promotion to E-5, most young NCOS are enrolled in the Primary Leadership Development Course, followed successively by the Basic and Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Courses. This professional education sequence culminates with attendance at the Sergeants Major Academy. The changes set in train by the switch to the Modern Volunteer Army have turned out to be extremely important to both the NCO corps and the Army: every effective NCO leader is a skilled trainer, and every skilled trainer is an effective leader.

"Bravo Two-Niner this is Tango ThreeFive. Permission to land. Out." From a camouflaged tent, well hidden in a treeline on the north German plain, those cryptic words informed the pilots and crew chiefs of two low-flying Army helicopters that they could take on the aviation gas that they needed to carry out the next phase of a complicated training mission. Each year a large contingent of troops came over from the United States to test the nation's ability to react quickly to international crises by reinforcing other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Once in place, the troops conducted a series of maneuvers alongside Americans permanently stationed in West Germany and the Low Countries and allied contingents. In 1987 those exercises, under the code names REFORGER and CERTAIN STRIKE, gave units from Fort Hood, Texas, the opportunity to train with forces from four other countries. The crew chiefs on the helicopters and the forward air controller in the tent-all wearing NCO stripes were part of this huge and complex effort.

These were present-day NCOs. Each had mastered a complicated subject, attended peri

odic refresher courses to stay abreast of changes, and undergone regular tests to demonstrate technical proficiency. But none was a specialist only. Each had also learned to lead, supervising work parties of soldiers and giving instruction to the highly trained men and women beneath them. Each NCO acted as a small unit tactician-a function formerly associated only with combat arms squad leaders and platoon sergeants. On the highly lethal battlefields of modern war, there are no rear areas; every leader must shoulder the dual responsibilities of protecting his or her unit area and of performing an assigned mission. Every NCO must be proficient as both technician and leader. The men and women of this Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) had to be ready to operate close to the enemy, in some cases behind his lines, to sustain in continuous operation a new generation of helicopters. In performing their jobs they reflected two new realities of the post-Vietnam Army-the emergence of a mature NCO corps and the ever-growing importance of Army aviation to battlegrounds of the present and future.

When the Army left Vietnam in the early 1970s, it began one of the most sweeping and decisive transitions in its long history. In Korea and again in Vietnam, soldiers had fought so-called little wars. Tactics in Vietnam had been unconventional, while those in Korea had often featured pitched battles like those of the two

world wars. Throughout both conflicts, however, national leaders had been aware that American strategic interest centered on Europe, where the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations had their main forces, and on the Middle East, from which America and its allies drew much of their oil. The end of the Vietnam War

reemphasized these basic strategic facts. At the same time, the partial breakdown in morale that resulted from Vietnam, and the end of the draft, forced Army planners to do some basic thinking about the future.

Drawing upon historical examples, the Army's leadership reviewed the Vietnam experience to identify those things that had been done well and those that were in need of improvement. Once again, government policymakers felt considerable social and economic pressure to make dramatic cuts in the military. Many citizens called for the nation to withdraw from its role as an active world power and to turn its resources to domestic problems. In the media, criticism of the armed services was intense and often unfair. The American people, accustomed to an unbroken string of clear-cut triumphs in war, viewed the stalemate in Vietnam as a defeat, especially when the South Vietnamese government collapsed following the U.S. withdrawal. Leaders in the Department of Defense recognized the great need to return to military fundamentals and at the same time to embrace the social changes that were transforming the status of women and minorities in the country as a whole.

The result, though not a revolution, was fundamental change. Officer and enlisted training progams underwent wholesale revision to apply the best aspects of modern educational programs to military instruction. Resources were reallocated between the active and reserve components, unit tables of organization and equipment revised wholesale, and basic doctrine reviewed. The Women's Army Corps was abolished, and women were integrated into the total force. From a low in the early 1970s, the Modern Volunteer Army expanded over the next decade and a half to include twenty-eight divisions drawn from the Regular Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve. Other combat, combat support, and combat service support elements provided a balanced structure capable of sustained operations. Equipped with the latest in technology, officers and NCOS began to develop new training programs that were as realistic as possible—a concept as old as Steuben's efforts at Valley Forge. Nowhere did the resurgence of traditional military values emerge more clearly than in the noncommissioned officer corps.

One effect of the rapid changes during the 1970s and 1980s was the elevation of Army aviation to branch status. Such recognition had been long in coming. Soldiers first took to the skies during the Civil War in gas-filled observation balloons often piloted by civilian aeronauts. But serious battlefield applications of flying came only after the invention of fixed-wing aircraft. Early in the twentieth century a detail of Signal Corps personnel received flying instruction from the Wright brothers themselves. By the time of World War I Army

aces were performing reconnaissance missions, dropping bombs, and fighting aerial combats with German fliers like the Red Baron. Already in those early days of Army aviation, NCOs were supervising ground crews and directing maintenance of planes.

Army aviation suffered under the same budgetary restrictions as other parts of the armed forces during the interwar years. But throughout Europe and America, military planners knew that air power would play a major role in future wars. As the 1930s came to a close, the growing power of a rearmed Germany underlined the urgent need to develop fighters and bombers, both for tactical support of ground operations and for strategic destruction of enemy bases. In 1937 the U.S. Army received the first B-17s, the famous Flying Fortress, on which NCOS served as gunners.

During World War II the relatively tiny Army Air Corps blossomed into the biggest air organization in the world, the Army Air Forces. Dozens of NCOs in ground crews and at maintenance facilities supported each air crew. But the difference in viewpoint between the fliers and those who fought the war at ground level was profound. Those who saw the war from the air really did not feel they were part of the same team. They agitated for a service of their own and eventually won a separate Air Force in the National Security Act of 1947.

This law established the basis for Army aviation as it exists today. The Army was allowed to retain some organic aviation, but disputes between the two services were quick to develop. Basically, the Air Force wanted to limit the Army to a few light observation planes, used for liaison and artillery spotting, as in World War II. The Army sought instead to develop aircraft that could be used for direct support of ground troops. Despite strong Air Force resistance, the Army became particularly interested in exploring the potential of the helicopter, which had just started to enter service in a few limited roles, mainly in medical evacuation.

Army and Air Force representatives reached a preliminary agreement in 1949 that sought to divide responsibilities by restricting Army aircraft, whether fixed wing or helicopter, to certain maximum weights. The agreement did not resolve the problem of direct support for the soldier on the ground, however, and was quickly outdated by the battlefield realities of the Korean War. Commanders who cared about their troops insisted on taking advantage of aircraft, particularly helicopters, to overcome the obstacles posed by Korea's harsh, hilly terrain. Speedy helicopter evacuation of the wounded to hospitals attracted the most attention, because it increased a G.I.'s chances of survival. But the Army also began to move troops and supplies throughout the combat zone by air.

The Korean War was still raging in 1951 when