NCOES Physical Fitness Testing: A Unit Leader Responsibility

The purpose of the NCO, as established throughout its history, has always centered on leadership roles. As the history of the Noncommissioned Officer Education System (NCOES) shows, academic instruction was a foundational requirement of the program from the very beginning. It was only relatively recently that hands-on components were added to bring the NCOES into line with 21st-century demands and in response to the events of 2001.

Nonetheless, the focus on leadership — with its subcategories of trust, self-confidence, and technology — has remained the modus vivendi of the program. Recently, however, the NCOES has become more involved in assessing and regulating soldiers' physical fitness and weight control standards. The argument of this essay is that doing so deviates from the NCOES mission, which is to develop the soldier's leadership capability and to help him grow toward that end.

The thesis of this essay is that unit-level leaders have an inherent responsibility to maintain and manage soldiers' physical fitness and weight control standards; therefore, we must hold these leaders accountable for the execution of these tasks before soldiers report to an NCOES course.

In order to best understand the purpose of the NCOES, we must know something of the history of the NCO and its educational offshoot. The NCO came into existence at the founding of the Army, albeit under various names and undergoing various evolutions. The purpose of the American Army has been more or less constant, as articulated by Maj. Gen. Ernest Harmon during World War II:

"The Constabulary School [later to merge into the NCO] is more than a place of instruction. It is a cradle, so to speak, in which we hope to establish the character, the esprit de corps, high standards of personal conduct, and appearance of the Constabulary. As most subjects taught here are entirely new to the soldier and to normal training, it was felt necessary to obtain as quickly as possible the maximum number of graduates to act as instructors to their units and to spread the Constabulary standards." (Elder, 2009)

In early 1949, the Noncommissioned Officers Course — initially a four-month program — came into effect using lectures, conferences, demonstrations, and practical exercises, with an emphasis on leadership, tactics, command and staff, automotive principles, and personnel management, among other subjects. In late 1949, then-commander Maj. Gen. Isaac D. White decided that officers of the Academy would receive special training consisting of academic instruction only, not hands-on exercise. His objective, as he articulated it to the graduating class of 1949, was: "We propose, in carrying out the academy's primary aim of developing you as leaders, to teach you how to teach others; how to reproduce for your men the subject matter which you are taught here." (Elder, 2009)

The program was rated as one of the most successful ventures in the institution's long history. Three major departments — Leadership and Command, Tactics, and Personnel and Administration — were charged with conducting the training. By 1951, the NCO Academy had graduated nearly 4,500 students.

Due to lessons learned from the Korean War, which highlighted the need for better-trained and combat-ready soldiers, the Army's NCO Academy and Educational System was formally established in 1957 with a mandate to standardize Army educational requirements and methods across the board. The directive stated that the "purpose of Noncommissioned Officer Academies is to broaden the professional knowledge of the noncommissioned officer and instill in him the self-confidence and sense of responsibility required to make him a capable leader of men." (Elder, 2009)

Among the standardized requirements was a mandate for seven core curriculum subjects emphasizing the new concepts of atomic warfare. In 1966, the Basic and Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Courses — precursors to today's NCOES — were established. These offered a comprehensive, professional educational environment in which each individual had the opportunity to broaden his knowledge and discover new areas outside of his immediate military training. Students were offered a college electives program and the opportunity to participate in a college degree program. The focus was clearly on academics and leadership, not on hands-on fitness testing.

In 1989, the NCO Leader Development Task Force noted that the NCOES was not completely aligned with unit levels of leadership and recommended requiring attendance prior to promotion: PLDC for sergeant, BNCOC for staff sergeant, ANCOC for sergeant first class, and the Sergeants Major Course for sergeants major. In 1992, recommended improvements included adding rifle qualification requirements, a train-the-trainer course, and shared field-training exercises. Soldiers now must receive appropriate training for the next grade level under the Select, Train, Promote system prior to promotion, and career planning has also been added to the curriculum.

Organizers of the NCOES recognize that the 21st century calls for new skills and requirements, and the program's structure reflects that reality. The core values of the NCOES have, however, remained unchanged. According to Col. Kenneth Simpson and CSM Oren Bevins, Commandant and CSM of the Sergeants Major Academy (1989), those values are:

Len Koontz, now a sergeant major and formerly a team leader, platoon, and company radioman, regards trust and self-confidence as two of the major building blocks of a successful leader. Trust is needed both to inspire confidence in one's colleagues and subordinates and to have faith in one's teachers so that lessons can be effectively absorbed and modeled. Self-confidence is needed to persevere through a demanding curriculum and, in turn, to inspire others.

As Koontz stated: "Without courage, endurance, integrity and self-confidence you cannot sustain success. Most of the effective combat leaders I have known were self-confident without being overconfident or arrogant, and trusted their men and delegated authority when appropriate." (Combatleadership.com)

Trust and self-confidence are best instilled by NCOES leaders who mentor new officers, teach the requirements of the program, and help them adjust in as smooth and effortless a manner as possible. New officers are trained from the first day of OCS to seek the advice and support of their NCOs. They expect NCOs to be competent and are usually very willing to accept guidance and recommendations from them. The bottom line, as Koontz observed, is that "NCOs should do everything in their power to ensure that new officers quickly learn the things they need to know to win battles and minimize casualties." (Combatleadership.com)

With such a mentoring environment in place, the leader will inspire trust in his cohort while generating self-confidence in both officers and himself — precisely the outcome the NCOES was designed to produce.

The remotely located student cannot always connect to the classroom. High-tech tools — computers and the Internet — are therefore used to connect the student to course proceedings. In 1996, a pilot course was conducted to teach PLDC across the airwaves in an interactive session to soldiers on duty in the Sinai, and in 1997 the common leader portion of ANCOC was taught to reserve component NCOs at Fort Hood, Texas.

Life has changed substantially since the NCO was first established, and students frequently find themselves away from the Army base. Todd A. Weiler, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Reserve Affairs, Mobilization, Readiness and Training — who was instrumental in developing the Army Distance Learning Program — emphasized that "the future of the Army must involve distance learning" (Elder, 2009). Computer-based CD-ROM courses tied to a workstation now assist students as new technologies are introduced to the digital classroom. As methods for institutional training become more sophisticated, the need for trained NCOs remains constant, and the NCOES continues to adapt its delivery without abandoning its leadership-centered mission.