Changes for NCOs: New writing test, leader course

[BMT (RIP)]

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/enlisted/2015/02/08/army-nco-2020-projects-new-writing-test-leader-course/22799669/

BMT

[Peregrino]

Not an issue with me. Personally I'm sick of the indiscriminate use of "warrior" to describe Soldiers. This isn't medieval magic where naming something makes it so. Telling a basic trainee (yes - I used the verboten "trainee" word) he's a "WARRIOR" does not make it so. Nor does renaming PLDC WLC make a shitpot of difference in the outcome. If anything it cheapens the accolade of Warrior when bestowed on a deserving individual through the consensus of his peers.

"In War of every One-Hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there,
eighty are nothing but targets, nine are real fighters...we are lucky to have them...they make the battle.
Ah, but the One, one of them is a Warrior...and He will bring the others back."

Heraclitus (circa 500 BC)

Call a thing what it is, not what you would wish it to be. Otherwise you're engaged in deception and everyone eventually suffers. Kind of like using a Grade 5 bolt where a Grade 8 bolt is called for - you can get away with it for a while but failure and the consequences are inevitable.

As for the academic changes - about damn time. As we adapt to meet current challenges and future threats, we desperately need an educated NCO Corps - not just a trained one. Sadly, I expect considerable push-back from across the Army. McNamara's 100,000 left an enduring blemish on the Enlisted force that's still being felt today. That and it's going to be expensive and require command support that I don't see being as forthcoming as will be required.

[35NCO]

Agree with education, but I do not think that is what this is really about.

At some point in time, in a room somewhere in the Pentagon, some officers determined that if ALL the soldiers wore the Black Beret, they would all feel like Rangers. These people also determined that if trainee's and soldiers alike were to be called "warriors" they would all be experts of war. Yet not one instance have I read of a top leader that asked the question of "what do we need to do as leaders to build true soldiers and true leaders by motivation and experience alone?"

Seems all the solutions were about working around the problems to reach an undetermined true goal and not really solving them or defining them. Agree that it is a lazy leadership psychology to believe you can make something by a name.

The smoke sessions, the mud, the weeks in the field, the CS gas, the rucks...all for even a simple training exercise are all lost to the wind in the larger force today. Its a determination to avoid it all for "risk mitigation" by all means possible. (IMO, In the part of the Army I serve in...)

As far as more online schooling goes its the same philosophies. Its too hard to train people in person or it takes too much time. So instead we give them courses with tests they can easily cheat on or slide shows they can click through. ...Yeah, that will make them better and more reliable.

A refusal or inability to recognize the importance of teaching is quitting as a leader.