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I hope this thread isn't too "aged" to put something on it.
In 91 - 95 I was the Ops/Intel Development Officer at the DOTD, SWC. O&I School had traditionally been the "SF NCO Advanced Course" for the guys ever since I'd been on a team. But in the 94/95 era, the SF NCO Academy wanted to own everything that was SF NCO.
I was tasked to do a study on the pros/cons of combining them at the NCO academy. These were the major points that I brought up:
1. Combining the two courses would make an incredibly long course. These two schools together would span possibly two deployment cycles and these guys were needed on teams.
2. O&I was able to keep the standards high for the course. If an NCO flunked out, it wasn't a career killer. But if a guy went to the combined course and boloed, he would be an ANCOC no-go and his career would be over. We felt that the course would be watered down to keep people from being put out of the army.
3. O&I at that time had become an MOS producing school. There was no mechanism for ANCOC to produce an MOS qualification.
4. A good many of the tasks that were taught by O&I were "owned" by SWC. If these tasks were transfered over to ANCOC, the Sergeants Major Academy would be the proponent school for them. That meant that SWC would have to ask permission before upgrading or teaching a new task - a horrible bowl of spaghetti in army schools.
When it was time to pitch the brief to Gen Schacknow, the NCO Academy CSM. the SWC CSM, the SWTG CSM, and 2nd Bn CSM all showed up to pitch their side. Their pitch was "this is NCO business, the NCO Academy does NCO business and we want it!"
Gen Shacknow saw that the entire NCO chain was demanding it (along with a Son Tay raider and a former USAIMA CSM they brought along for good measure) and checked Course of Action 2 (NCO Academy). But to his credit, he wrote on the last page "If we've done something dumb here, let me know soonest."
We tried to keep it as two separate courses but the stars were aligned against us. I believe what we felt was going to happen, did. The course became too long, there were problems with 18F, and let's face it - not everyone is cut out for O&I School.
But that's the sorry history behind it. Bottom line: the guys who originally designed a separate course back in the day of the dinosaur knew what they were doing and a CSM who'd never been anywhere or done anything (came into SF as a senior E-7) tried to change what was a pretty good, if imperfect system.
Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
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