Posted on 06/02/2004 6:05:53 PM PDT by Incorrigible
BY DAVID WOOD
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FORT BENNING, Ga. -- When firefights erupt with terrifying chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is usually sergeants -- not officers -- who steady their riflemen, maneuver their soldiers down alleyways, coordinate by radio with other units and supervise the resupply of water and ammo and evacuation of the wounded.
These front-line, midcareer soldiers -- noncommissioned officers, or NCOs -- carry immense power and responsibility. They lead the squads and platoons that directly engage in the swirling confusion of an insurgency, deploying over and over again on missions that test their courage, endurance and ingenuity.
Should they decide they've had enough, as they did during the Vietnam War, the Army's performance would suffer, Army officials acknowledge.
Among sergeants gathered recently for a senior leadership course here, there are the first hints of trouble. Those fresh back from Iraq or Afghanistan say they are "exhausted." Some say they are dispirited by an enemy that seems immune to American power. Some, due to deploy again in a few months, essentially have left their families for the duration, whatever that turns out to be. The demands of a war that seems to have no end leave less and less time for the training they need.
But so far, they are hanging on. Current re-enlistment rates top 90 percent.
"It was good at first," Sgt. 1st Class Eric Jarvis said of his year in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, where he served on the battle staff in a tactical operations center and worked with Iraqi police. But as the weeks of occupation stretched into months, "it was just `duty' that kept me going," he said. "I don't know how I made it all happen."
He soon heads back for a second tour.
A lanky, jut-jawed 35-year-old career soldier from Escondido, Calif., Jarvis is deeply concerned about the corrosive effects of the military occupation in Iraq and especially the fallout from the spreading revelations about U.S. military abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
"I spent a year trying to make a moral argument" about the U.S. intervention in Iraq, he said. The only way to win, in his view, is for soldiers to be engaged with Iraqis, on the street, daily. "When I go back, this is all going to get thrown back in our faces. This is bad."
The nature of these wars has forced new duties on NCOs. When the Army faced large, organized formations of enemy, it could fight with companies and battalions commanded by officers. Units like a 30-man platoon were led by both an officer and a sergeant. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy is shadowy bands of insurgents operating individually or in swarms, and the fighting is often done by nine-man squads, led by staff sergeants.
Historians like Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army major general and former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, contend that the skill of such leaders enabled the military to operate in small, coordinated groups that sped into Iraq last year and shattered organized resistance.
"Initiative and leadership have now moved down to the lowest levels of command," Scales and Williamson Murray write in their new history, "The Iraq War."
Along with fighting the bloody insurgency, NCOs are negotiating with warlords and neighborhood civic leaders, supervising reconstruction projects, and helping to run schools and health clinics.
Maneuvering two Bradley fighting vehicles down Fallujah's murderous streets, learning to coordinate with local Iraqi officials and cops, "this was a first for me, when your men's lives were on the line," said Sgt. 1st Class Johnny Meadows, a 35-year-old platoon sergeant from Roanoke, Va., who fought with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.
The Army contends that its NCO education system, beefed up over the past decade, is critical to enabling NCOs to take on these increased responsibilities and to uphold high ethical standards. "We have NCOs doing things they were never trained to do in school," said Command Sgt. Maj. Michael A. Kelso, who oversees infantry training for enlisted soldiers.
Here in the sandy scrub pine and stifling Georgia heat where all American infantry officers and enlisted soldiers are trained, the word "sergeant" is spoken sometimes with urgency or irritation, but always with respect: "Sarnt."
Within the memory of veterans like Command Sgt. Maj. Charles L. Raper Jr., 48, sergeants were hard-drinking, foul-mouthed and quick with their fists. Reading and writing weren't ranked high as admired skills.
Today, college degrees are common. So are certificates from jump school, Ranger school, air assault school, pathfinder school and other hard-knocks technical and leadership training courses. They've all had to struggle through competitive NCO courses where students sit in seminars at desks piled high with textbooks like "Staff Organization and Operations," "Battle Focused Training" and "Leadership and Command at Senior Levels."
Kelso insists that the NCOs implicated in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal are "absolutely not" a sign of rot within the NCO corps. "We do our best to instill a sense of values that enables soldiers to make the right decisions," he said.
But back-to-back deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are making it difficult for the Army to get these leaders into school.
"With the large force in Afghanistan and Iraq, we don't see that we'll be able to rotate all the NCOs through the system and still meet deployment schedules," said Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony Williams, who oversees all enlisted soldier training in the Army.
Professional NCO school courses will shrink, Williams said, although he declined to be specific until the changes are approved within the Army.
A similar demand for NCO manpower during Vietnam sapped professionalism, Kelso recalled. Because of high casualty rates, the Army was rushing sergeants to Vietnam "in some cases with very little education -- we called 'em `shake 'n' bake' NCOs," Kelso said. Many of the best NCOs quit in frustration.
The effects lasted into the 1980s. Poorly trained, inexperienced NCOs "weren't trusted," said Raper. "Lieutenants were told, `Don't trust your platoon sergeant."' Sergeants assigned soldiers to paint rocks and drank at lunch and often didn't bother coming back in the afternoon. Drug abuse crept upward while morale sank.
Eventually, Raper said, "We decided to take back our Army." They pushed for harder field training, more competitive promotion rates and more rigorous schools.
Today's NCO corps is proud and professional. "Kids are coming to us hungry for something society isn't giving them -- responsibility," said Command Sgt. Maj. Cynthia Holland, who heads the NCO Academy at the Army Quartermaster Center at Fort Lee, Va.
Perhaps what also sustains them is the gritted-teeth satisfaction they express in doing a difficult job well.
"I've had fun over the past 29 years," Raper said of his NCO career in Rangers and other hard-boiled infantry outfits, "and all of it has been miserable."
June 2, 2004
(David Wood can be contacted at david.wood@newhouse.com)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
"But back-to-back deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are making it difficult for the Army to get these leaders into school."
I don't see how any school can be as effective as real combat in teaching these guys combat skills and in sorting out the wheat from the chaff.
We are finding out what works as opposed to what sounds good.
Hooah! NCO Bump!
God bless the men who lead our armed forces!
SARGE - you GOTTA read this!!
Hence NCO professional development courses.
Furthermore, it's better to learn from the mistakes of others in a classroom environment than to learn the lessons firsthand at the cost of good men - the Army disseminated the lessons from Mogadishu through the classroom, giving various participants the opportunity to pass along their experiences and lessons learned to other soldiers, many of whom have had an opportunity to put that knowledge to good use in recent years.
The best education I ever received were from my NCOs. Whoever came up with the moniker to describe them as the "Backbone of the Army", nailed it.
Unfortunately, its not all combat skills that count when competing for promotions. Many NCO's will serve in staff positions developing plans and logistics for battalion and larger formations. Many will be required for recruiting duties. These assignments have different skill sets which must be learned for successful tours by the NCO's. And attending schools is critical for learning the necessary skills.
Is combat the school of hard knocks?
"God bless the men who lead our armed forces!"
And God bless Texas!
"Once you've seperated the wheat from the chaff, you still have to grow it.
Hence NCO professional development courses."
Isn't the time for that, after the wars are won?
It is but it is a damn hard way to learn.
No.
The time for cultivating Army leadership is now, and it's best done with a knowledge base broader than can be provided within our line platoons.
Did we have plenty of time between the Gulf War and Afghanistan to go to school?
Did they send NCOs to school during WWII?
Yes
[...]
An' now the hugly bullets come peckin' through the dust,
An' no one wants to face 'em, but every beggar must;
So, like a man in irons, which isn't glad to go,
They moves 'em off by companies uncommon stiff an' slow.
Of all 'is five years' schoolin' they don't remember much
Excep' the not retreatin', the step an' keepin' touch.
It looks like teachin' wasted when they duck an' spread an 'op --
But if 'e 'adn't learned 'em they'd be all about the shop.
An' now it's "'Oo goes backward?" an' now it's "'Oo comes on?"
And now it's "Get the doolies," an' now the Captain's gone;
An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 'ear
'Is voice, the same as barrick-drill, a-shepherdin' the rear.
'E's just as sick as they are, 'is 'eart is like to split,
But 'e works 'em, works 'em, works 'em till he feels them take the bit;
The rest is 'oldin' steady till the watchful bugles play,
An 'e lifts 'em, lifts 'em, lifts 'em through the charge that wins the day!
[...]
Yes, they had plenty of time to go to school before the wars started and thus now is the time to put that schooling to work or yes, they did have school during WWII?
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