NonComs: The Senior Soldier 1968 US Army The Big Picture TV-731

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'This film documents the story of "the backbone of the Army" -- the story of the senior soldier. Scenes depict the careful selection and thorough training of these noncommissioned officers and the role of "middle management" they filled.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commissioned_officer

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not earned a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually obtain their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. In contrast, commissioned officers usually enter direct from a military academy, and are often expected to have a university degree.

The NCO corps usually includes all grades of corporal and sergeant; in some countries, warrant officers also carry out the duties of NCOs. The naval equivalent includes some or all grades of petty officer. There are different classes of non-commissioned officers, including junior non-commissioned officers (JNCO) and senior (or staff) non-commissioned officers (SNCO)...

Function

The non-commissioned officer corps has been referred to as "the backbone" of the armed services, as they are the primary and most visible leaders for most military personnel. Additionally, they are the leaders primarily responsible for executing a military organization's mission and for training military personnel so they are prepared to execute their missions. NCO training and education typically includes leadership and management as well as service-specific and combat training.

Senior NCOs are considered the primary link between enlisted personnel and the commissioned officers in a military organization. Their advice and guidance are considered particularly important for junior officers and in many cases to officers of all senior ranks...

In the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, all ranks of sergeant are termed NCOs, as are corporals in the Army and Marine Corps. A Marine Corps lance corporal (E-3) is not an NCO, but rather junior enlisted. The rank of corporal (E-4) in the Army and Marine Corps is a junior NCO, and is to be shown the same respect as any other NCO...

NCOs serving in the top three enlisted grades (E-7, E-8, and E-9) are termed senior non-commissioned officers (chief petty officers in the Navy and Coast Guard). Senior NCOs are expected to exercise leadership at a more general level. They lead larger groups of service members, mentor junior officers, and advise senior officers on matters pertaining to their areas of responsibility.

Within the Marine Corps, senior NCOs are referred to as staff noncommissioned officers (SNCOs) and also include the rank of staff sergeant (E-6). SNCOs are those career Marines serving in grades E-6 through E-9 and serve as unit leaders and supervisors, primary assistants and technical advisors to officers, and senior enlisted advisors to commanding officers, commanding generals, and other higher-level commanders. The ranks include staff sergeant, gunnery sergeant (E-7), master sergeant / first sergeant (E-8), and master gunnery sergeant / sergeant major (E-9)...

U.S. Army NCO Candidate Course

Beginning in 1967 at Fort Benning, Georgia, the US Army Noncommissioned officer candidate course (NCOC) was a Vietnam-war era program developed to alleviate shortages of enlisted leaders at squad and platoon level assignments, training enlisted personnel to assume jobs as squad leaders in combat.

Based loosely on the Officer Candidate School (OCS), NCOC was a new concept (at the time) where high performing trainees attending basic infantry combat training were nominated to attend a two-phased course of focused instruction on jungle warfare, and included a hands-on portion of intense training, promotion to sergeant, and then a 12-week assignment leading trainees going through advanced training.

Regular Army soldiers who had received their promotion through traditional methods (and others) used derisive terms for these draftees (typically) who were promoted quicker, such as "Instant NCOs", "Shake 'n' Bake", and "Whip n' Chills".

The program proved to be so successful that as the war began to wind down they elected to institutionalize training noncommissioned officers and created the NCO Education System (NCOES), which was based around the NCO candidate course. The NCO candidate course generally ended 1971–1972...