Thoughts on the importance of the NCOs in the U.S. military

Earlier this month, I psyched myself up to take my ASVAB and PFT - the two tests that I must pass (or, rather, ace) if I ever wish to become an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves. I wasn't too concerned about the ASVAB, but I was terrified of not being able to score a perfect 100 on all three events that constitute the PFT (for my age group, that means I have to run two miles in under 13 minutes, do 77 pushups, and 82 situps). But when I finally got to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) at Fort Lee for testing, I was turned away because it turns out that another MEPS in Baltimore has my information on-file and it needed to be transferred. So...it looks like joining the Army Reserves is going to have to wait (again). Oh, well.

In the meantime, I've been preoccupied with other matters. In order to get myself thinking about how I will want to carry myself around non-commissioned officers (NCOs) should I ever join the Army, I decided that I needed to remind myself of why they will deserve my respect as a lowly O-1. When I did my interview for my (eventually rejected) Air Force application last February, one of the major questions that came up was how I felt about NCOs.

I remember that I stumbled through an answer along the lines of, "Well, I realize that that as an O-1, I'm going to be entering the Air Force with nothing but my degrees and my theoretical knowledge learned in Officer Training School. Whereas a typical E-7 is going to have over a decade of operational experience, likely in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other deployments. We have to be able to complement each other."

But my interviewer, an Air Force Reserve O-4 who I had requested for the interview, told me, "You're missing the bigger picture here: The fact that the U.S. military has a professional class of career non-commissioned officers is one of the key differences between the U.S. military and almost every other military in the world."

Point taken: I didn't grasp why NCOs matter so much in the U.S. military. So I promised myself that I will have a better answer when I interview before the Army officer recruiting board. To that end, I have sought out reading material on the topic, and it just so happens that in December 2013, the National Defense University published a brand-new tribute to NCOs and their naval equivalents, Petty Officers (POs). It's called The Non-commissioned Officer and Petty Officer: Backbone of the Armed Forces, and it can be downloaded here. Aside from the foreward, written by J-7 Chief Martin Dempsey, the book's content is the product of a team of Sergeant Majors, Master Sergeants, and Chief Petty Officers serving at NCO/PO academies across the United States.The first chapter of the book is written in somewhat flowery language, but otherwise does a good job articulating what it is that makes NCOs/POs so important:

• "NCOs/POs are the specially trusted leaders who provide an indispensable and irreplaceable linkage between command guidance and mission execution."
• "NCOs/POs nurture individual and organizational well-being by genuinely caring for their subordinates and promoting morale and esprit de corps within their units."
• "By teaching, coaching, and mentoring the force, and by instilling a sense of unity, purpose, good order, and discipline—and demanding compliance with standards, tradition, culture, customs, and courtesies—they are looked upon as the organization’s pillars of strength and loyalty."
• "Because they are the leaders closest to the force, NCOs/POs have the greatest effect on accomplishing organizational goals and achieving mission success."
• "NCOs/POs are a commander’s treasure, a source of seasoned perspectives that transcends place in the organizational hierarchy, a place neatly balanced between mission and people. They provide the commander and officer corps with unique insights and actionable perspectives while also providing an enlisted voice in matters concerning operations, administration, readiness, and the well-being of the force."

For my purposes, Chapter 4 was of greatest interest, because this is where the book addresses the ways that NCOs/POs complement commissioned officers. They discuss the three Cs' of good NCOs - they must be "competent, credible, and capable", and describe the NCO's role to the CO as "[the] principal advisor, a source of competence and counsel, who enhances the officer’s ability to command effectively."

There's another reason to consider the importance of NCOs in the U.S. military: Many analysts who talk about other modernizing armed forces in comparison to ours tend to overlook the role NCOs play. Discussions of the Russian armed forces of Chinese People's Liberation Army tend to speak mostly to their attempts at acquiring new weapons and technology, or re-organizing their force structure for greater agility and faster deployment timetables. Often overlooked is the fact that the Russians hope that they can recruit 64,000 NCOs, and the PLA wants to attract 150,000 well-trained college graduates for enlistment, under the assumption that will be better-suited to operating the complex new weapons systems it wishes to purpose. Both countries seem to recognize that having an NCO corps is essential to transforming their formerly conscript-based mass mobilization armies into professional all-volunteer forces, and I think that's worth keeping in mind. Officers and junior enlisted men will always be easy to recruit for short-term service stints, but the NCOs will always be the most valuable commodity to the force.