SPINELESS
A noncommissioned officer’s job is not easy and we expect a lot from those who are selected to lead, train, and care for the best soldiers in the world…. The reward for being a noncommissioned officer is the honor and privilege to lead and train America’s finest men and women during peace and war. -SMA Julius W. Gates, “Sergeant Major of the Army Julius W. Gates.” INSCOM, Aug-Sep 1989, p. 14
LEAD
What do you think when you hear the word lead? I think of making the hard decisions and being the result for every action that the leader and his men make under him. A protector who like the quote says, is given the privilege to be the one that steps to the front showing no fear.
First, let’s go back to 1941. The United States had officially entered world war II. The army as a whole was rapidly expanding to compensate for future casualties. Many NCOs looked at new and expanding jobs. One of those new and career progressive jobs was that of the paratrooper. The paratrooper is defined as “a member of a military infantry unit trained to attack or land in combat areas by parachuting from airplanes” Today you think of jumping from an airplane as a recreational event, but in the 1940s the idea of jumping from a plane was ludicrous and doing it while in combat was outrages. The Non Commissioned Officers of this time not only had to learn this new trade, but also had to lead the soldiers out the doors. A great task answered by great men!
“I saw a lot of combat during the war,” says Lipton. “I lost a lot of friends. The fighting around Bastogne was bad because it went on for so long, but I think I was most frightened in Normandy on D-Day when we were attacking the 105s that were shelling Utah Beach.”
Carwood Lipton was an NCO of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and is widely known for his leadership with the “band of brothers”. I chose to use Carwood Lipton as my example because of his publicity. Anyone who has watched “band of brothers” knows that Lipton’s leadership during those trying years was a godsend to the men. So here we have by all terms a leader of men, talking about fear while jumping on d-day. This fear of jumping out of a plane being shot at and landing in a foreign land prepared for battle, had no effect on his ability to LEAD! He was for all purposes a machine. Fear is the finale test for a leader. For an NCO in the 1940s they were excepted to be a “machine”. To lead by example and at all times show no fear. Does todays NCO answer this requirement of showing no fear in a world that has every reason to be? My answer is yes, but todays NCO is now faced with a different task then just being a “machine”. They must fight a system that has taken away power from its discipline enforcers.
The NCO Corps, ‘the backbone of the Army,’ is responsible for all training, to include training officers. A majority of the NCOs now have just as much education and probably more experience than the officer corps,” wrote Sgt. R.J. Eugin, a recruiter.
Todays NCO is battle hardened and well-educated. So whats the issue? A study of Army soldiers screened 3 to 4 months after returning from deployment to Iraq showed that 27 percent met criteria for alcohol abuse and were at increased risk for related harmful behaviors (e.g., drinking and driving, using illicit drugs). Why is that the NCOs of today allow the soldiers and themselves to spiral into being an army that is reminiscent to Napoleons standing army in Moscow? The answer is in the big picture. The strategy of the United States Army as a whole is to give the soldier the tools to succeed and to strictly monitor them with how they behave. The Benning House was a halfway house for the treatment of alcohol and other drug abuse opened on March 23, 1970 as the first residential program in the U.S. Army. This house was the beginning of what is now known as the Army Substance Abuse Program. The army saw the problem and they gave an answer. The only problem with this answer is that it has been around since the draftees of Vietnam and the soldiers of today are a standing force of volunteers NOT my grandfather who was forced into the force. These volunteers should be held to a higher standard than their drafted predecessor. After all they were adults when they signed that contract (unfortunately society in the united states doesn’t see it that way, but that’s another story)
The Fort Hood NCO Academy was directed to establish a leadership orientation course in 1957. This was the start of the NCO academy and since then has evolved into a TRADOC regulated school. So the army has provided the NCOs with a school to learn how to in their terms be a leader. I have personally attended this school and can say that it did not teach me anything in the vaguest definition of leadership. Most of the course were spent behind a computer, learning how to correctly research regulations and how to properly write counseling. So was the school of hard knocks that Lipton had, better than this spectacular school the Army has provided? an NCO appointed over a soldier should make said soldier into a better leader then himself. Fathers expect better from their sons and so should NCOs with their soldiers. The army needs to step away from either the strategies at this “school” or completely demolish the idea.
The military as a whole has majorly shifted its techniques in discipline because of hazing in the military. http://www.change.org/petitions/military-hazing-has-got-to-stop tells a story about Danny Chen a service member who after being brutally hazed committed suicide. The army has since changed its policy stating corrective Action is an “attention getter” for a minor infraction and is limited to five repetitions of a Physical Readiness Training (PRT) exercise contained in TC 3.22-20. I have seen this attention getter and have not seen it as any way to properly correct a soldier who has done wrong. Do I think hazing is bad? Of course! but should stories like this effect the force as a whole? Should we water down a good system because of some rotten apples? No, we should rather build stronger minds mentally, and know when a smoke sessions is corrective and when radicalized treatment is time to break the leash.
So why hasn’t the army improved the caliber of its force from the time of the greatest generation to todays all volunteer group? After all they have given an answer to every problem that has come up since world war II. The answer is simple! They have given the soldiers (E-4 and below) too much power. They as in Big Army, has bogged its NCOs down with paperwork and needing to be more of a lawyer then a professional in the art of war. They have allowed the outside world LAMBS! to determine how the LIONS defends it. Why does the Army no longer trust the NCO of the United States Army? As much as I would like to blame it on the politicking going on at the top , I cannot. The fact of the matter is that a Non Commissioned officer is and will always be the “backbone of the army”, and the army lately has been acting like it lacks a “backbone”.
Todays post goes out to the NCO! Do something to save your army! Start leading by example and for gods sake come together against this overwhelming force of self titled democrats that have a simple solution for every problem. The Army created a solution for all problems long ago and that solution wears stripes! The Union calls on all NCOs to come together and come up with some reform for these problems. In closing I’ll leave you with a simple, but awakening quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower.
“The sergeant is the Army”
your most humble and obedient servant, N.H.
Patriots Union 