Today’s Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO)
Are the non-commissioned officers of today more trained than the non-commissioned officer of yesterday? The non-commissioned officer corps was born on 1775 with the establishment of the Continental Army. When the non-commissioned Officer corps was established it included different types of traditions for its establishment, such as the French, British, and Prussian traditions. You see it wasn’t until a few years later when United States non-commissioned officer corps was removed from its European counterpart and then became a true American non-commissioned officer corps.
As we take a look at the Non-commissioned officer corps today, we will see how much we have grown from 1775. When I talk about grown, I’m taking about knowledge, training, equipment and experience in corps today. Back in 1778 all the Non-commissioned officer corps had was a blue book, and maybe it kind of described the duties and responsibilities. The only other thing that the non-commissioned officer corps had to rely on was experience because they had little to no formal training. Make no mistake about it, the development of a strong non-commissioned officer corps helped maintain the Continental Army through severe hardship and victory. As the Army increased the technology and became more modernized, that greatly affect the non-commissioned officer corps. The selection to become a Non-commissioned officer in 1957 was aim to equip non-commissioned officers with the new standard army regulation. So now the non-commissioned officer getting selected had more self-confidence, knowledge, and a sense of responsibility to become effective leaders. The original ranks were corporal, sergeant, first sergeant, quartermaster sergeant, and sergeant major. Through war, the Army saw the need to add new ranks to the non-commissioned officers Co...
