Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 92

F

ollowing the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the
U.S. Army had a series of successful combat operations, including Operation Urgent Fury, Operation
Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Enduring
Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Military pundits,
both friendly and unfriendly, often attribute much of this
success to the technol ogical advantages the United States
has had over its enemies—in weaponry, modern equipment, and cutting-edge intelligence-gathering capabilities—as well as to the diplomatic, political, and military
support of its close allies. However, insufficient attention
has been given to the human dimension of the Army’s
structure, particularly the doctrinal manner in which it
encourages initiative through the decentralization of power from the officers who plan its operations and command
its formations to the noncommissioned officers (NCOs)
who execute those plans in both garrison and combat.
The secret to the success of the Army is twofold. The
first aspect is the manner in which it capitalizes on the
effective use of its most important resource—soldiers. The
second, and the focus of this paper, is the manner in which
the NCO corps, promoted from the most talented members of the population of enlisted soldiers, has developed
over the last forty years into a professional institution. The
empowerment of U.S. Army NCOs over this period is
now an indispensable feature of Army structure and culture that saves officers’ precious resources—principally in
freeing up their time to concentrate their attention on the

management of vast and increasingly complex organizations. This creates efficiencies in the Army that effectively
extend its operational and tactical reach—especially at
the battalion level and below—by enabling each soldier
to take initiative and resolve problems at the lowest level
appropriate to achieve the commander’s intent.
As partner nations look forward, to plan, build, and
implement new security cooperation agreements over
the future decades with the United States, it may be to
their advantage to take a closer look at the pride of the
Army—the NCO corps—and the way it was developed
following the Vietnam War to become the professional
institution it is today.
Some traditional U.S. allies, such as Jordan and
Colombia, have recently recognized the lack of an empowered NCO corps as a shortfall within their own
armies, and they are working with the United States to
bring about systemic long-term changes to increase the
autonomy of lower-level units within their armed forces.1
They are doing this by improving the leadership qualities
in their NCOs and revamping their NCO education
systems. This change can reap benefits by expanding the
operational and tactical range of those armies.

The U.S. Army Model

Toward the end of the unpopular Vietnam War,
strategic leaders within the Army recognized that the
conscripted force would soon be a relic of the past. The
war-weary U.S. citizenry was
tired of the draft and called for
an all-volunteer force. Among
the many initiatives Army
leaders discussed to encourage
enlistment and reenlistment
for the volunteer soldiers were
better pay, fair and improved
opportunities for promotion
and upward mobility, and a
diffusion of power to enhance
the capacity and effectiveness
of the all-volunteer force.
Officers in charge of implementing these changes, such
as Gen. Eugene Depuy, spent
(Photo courtesy of the National Army of Colombia)
several years perfecting the
Colombian army Col. Juan Felipe Yepes Lara presides over a military ceremony 22 February
2013 honoring 658 graduates of the Colombian “Sargento Inocencio Chincá” Noncommissioned
model that would eventually
Officer Academy, Tolemaida, Colombia.
be adopted.

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November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW