the top five percent (honor graduates) promoted to staff sergeant (E-6). All new NCOCC graduates received an additional ten weeks of practical training in grade as assistant instructors and tactical NCOs in a basic training center. After a total of twenty weeks of training, they were sent to units in Vietnam. The first reported for duty in the spring of 1968. Despite the fact that there is no substitute for experience, and despite some initial resentment from older, middle-grade noncommissioned officers, these "shake and bake" NCOs generally performed well. The Army leadership concluded, therefore, that the NCOCCS were a good wartime expedient, but not a sound foundation upon which to base long-term NCO training. The Noncommissioned Officers Candidate Courses were important, not only because they met an immediate need in Vietnam, but also because their success stimulated fresh thinking about NCO education and training as a whole. Outside the academies, on-the-job training was still the norm in 1968. Unlike the system for officer candidates, no Army-wide standards or systematic procedures existed for developing noncommissioned leaders. The NCOCC led the Army in the right direction toward permanent upgrading and reform. The result was the Noncommissioned Officers Educational System (NCOES), implemented in 1971. NCOES began as a three-level (later four- and now five-level) education system for enlisted careerists. The program had four specific objectives: to increase the professional quality of the NCO corps; to provide enlisted personnel with opportunities for progressive, continuing professional development; to enhance career attractiveness; and to provide the Army with trained and dedicated NCOs to fill permanent positions of increased responsibility. The framework for achieving these objectives was a three-tier course of instruction designed to guide the NCO through a progressive series of skill levels in his or her primary and secondary military occupational specialties (MOS). Each course included course work, on-the-job training, and periodic testing. NCOES courses attempted to present the proper balance of instruction in leadership, management, and technical skill. The basic course, which began in fiscal year 1971, provided E-4s and E-5s with training in all career management fields through forty-one service school Standardized classroom instruction (inset) is the hallmark of the current NCO Educational System (NCOES). The progression of course work culminates in the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas. (Photographs courtesy of the Sergeants Major Academy.) Today's NCO safeguards standards and traditions, trains subordinates, and is both technically and tactically proficient in short, forms the backbone of the Army. Sergeant Major of the Army Julius M. Gates (second from left) conveys this message in the field. (Courtesy of Army.) courses. A year later, forty-three advanced courses opened, preparing over 4,000 E-6s and E-7s for E-8 and E-9 responsibilities in their MOS. The capstone of the Noncommissioned Officers Educational System was the senior-level course, begun during fiscal year 1973 at the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas. Designed to prepare selected E-8s for duty as sergeants major and command sergeants major throughout the Army, the senior-level course at Fort Bliss, unlike the basic and advanced courses, was branch immaterial-dedicated to the broader professional perspective needed by command sergeants major. With the maturing of the NCOES, the Army for the first time had put into place a formal, standardized system that educated enlisted men and women in step with grade progression. The senior-level course at the Sergeants Major Academy provided career enhancement for senior NCOs similar to that provided for officers by the senior service colleges. With NCOES, the professionalization of noncommissioned officer training was at last becoming a reality. A professional NCO personnel management system, however, emerged very slowly. Like a juggler trying to keep several objects in the air at the same time, the Army Staff faced several manpower challenges in the mid-1960s. While operations in Vietnam required increasing quantities both of men and materiel, large field armies in western Europe and Korea also placed heavy demands on training and maintenance facilities. These burdens seriously challenged the Army's junior leaders, especially its NCOs. The Army tried a series of personnel management programs to sustain the professional capabilities and the morale of these leaders. But it was a scattergun approach. As the 1970s began, the reduction of the Army from Vietnam's peak of 1.5 million men and women to about 775,000, and the emergence of the all-volunteer force, caused the Army Staff to reconsider its piecemeal personnel management programs. Policies governing promotion, MOS classification, and testing and evaluation all affected a soldier's career pattern, morale, and likelihood of staying in the Army. Because the various programs were separate and sometimes contradictory in their effect, a soldier might well become confused and disheartened by the lack of clear direction in his or her career. Chief of Staff General Creighton W. Abrams directed a review to address the problem. In 1973 the Military Personnel Center and the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) took the lead in initiating farranging studies. The result was the Enlisted Personnel Management System (EPMS), implemented on 1 October 1975. It was designed to provide clear patterns of career development and promotion potential, whether a soldier served three years or thirty. Each career management field was grouped into a number of related MOSS, and redesigned to provide a logical and visible road map to guide career-motivated soldiers along the most direct route from E-1 to E-9. The Staff intended the new system to eliminate promotion bottlenecks and to provide a fair opportunity for advancement to all by centralizing promotions. The EPMS had varied and powerful impacts. For one thing, dead-end military occupational specialities-those in which a soldier could progress only to sergeant or staff sergeant were eliminated. Instead, the grouping of related responsibilities into career management fields enabled a soldier to merge one specialty into a related MOS at a certain grade. For example, a soldier with a Radio Operator MOS formerly peaked at the grade of sergeant and had to change jobs entirely to seek further promotion. Under the EPMS, the same soldier could merge into a related specialty (e.g.. Tactical Communications System Operator/Mechanic) and continue along the same career path. NCO education was also affected. The Noncommissioned Officers Educational System was one of the earliest programs to be taken over, integrated, and expanded. MOS skill levels were restructured for each enlisted grade, with a total of five levels. The branch schools developed training plans for each military occupational specialty, outlining specific tasks, the conditions under which tasks were to be performed, and the standards to be met for each skill level. Periodically, NCOS would verify through Skill Qualification Testing their ability to perform tasks at their required skill level. By achieving even higher qualifications scores in common-task testing, the MOS written test, and the hands-on evaluation, a soldier could attain the next higher skill level and thereby be considered for promotion. In many ways the EPMS was like the Officers' Personnel Management System. Once the EPMS was adopted, the noncommissioned officer corps had the kind of formal, service-wide system of professional career development that commissioned officers had long taken for granted. But the EPMS was not the last word in noncommis sioned officer career management. In 1980 the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations outlined the Noncommissioned Officer Development Plan (NCOPD). The creators of the plan emphasized the need for commanders at all levels to conduct formal NCO leadership training. At the same time, the plan made the Sergeant Major of the Army responsible for overseeing noncommissioned officer professional development throughout the Army's major commands, the National Guard, and the Army Reserve. Significantly, the NCODP complemented but did not displace the Enlisted Personnel Management System. The Noncommissioned Officer Development Plan enabled the NCO to put into practical application within his or her own unit the training and skills acquired through the EPMS and the NCOES. Instead of mere testing, this doing" phase of training enabled soldiers. to demonstrate their readiness to become truly professional NCOs. The Noncommissioned Officer Educational System, the Enlisted Personnel Management System, and the Noncommissioned Officer Development Plan, taken together, meant that as the decade of the 1980s began the Army had the doctrinal, institutional, and structural blueprint necessary to produce the professional noncommissioned officers needed for a contemporary Army. Looking back over the more than two centuries that have passed since the creation of the U.S. Army, it is clear that the evolution of the NCO's role and status has been gradual, at times uneven, and most pronounced in the last twenty years. Changes have come in response to a changing society, technological innovations, and new military tactics. The passage to a modern, professional identity for the corps was not always smooth, as the Army leadership and Army doctrine tried to keep pace. with these developments. But the Army has never lacked for reformers and planners to point the way, even if progress in some areas was long delayed. Today, NCOs in the United States Army enjoy the recognition as professionals that they have earned. They receive respectable pay for a day's work; they do not find themselves, individually or as a corps, slighted and neglected during peacetime; they can advance in rank through a career educational system; and they enjoy the benefits of centralized career management. NCOs now sit on promotion boards chaired by general officers and stand (symbolically at least) at the right hand of every commanding officer from platoon leader to the Chief of Staff. The way has been long, but a better Army has been the result. |