ARMOR, September-October 1987 Edition - Fort Benning - U.S. Army

Attendance Update
I thought this article should be
directed at updating you on where
we (Armor/Cavalry) stand - and
what we still need to do - regard-
ing attendance at the Noncommis-
sioned Officers Education System
(NCOES).
At the completion of the NCO
Development Study, one of the
recommendations was to realign the
objectives of the course as to who
goes, and when. In short, the
promote / train / utilize progression
was changed to train / promote /
utilize. The major problem in achiev-
ing that goal had been the number
of student slots available at the in-
stitution. We will have the necessary
number of seats in our senior institu-
tion at the end of the year, when the
Sergeants Major Academy opens its
new building.
As most of you know, the Armor
Force had a big increase in the num-
ber of E8s selected for the Ser-
geants Major Academy. For FY 89,
there were 66 primary and 27 alter-
nates selected - over three times
the number selected in previous
years. What does it mean?
It means our senior noncommis-
sioned oficers are more competi-
tive now, both for selection to SGM
and selection for CSM. This should
increase the number of CSMs avail-
able for Armor and Cavalry assign-
ments. Hopefully, it will give the bat-
taliordsquadron comnianders and
the soldiers of the organization
what they need a highly competent
command sergeant major who
knows armor and cavalry, under-
stands its ups and downs, and is
highly skilled in training the or-
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ganization. All we have to do now is
sustain the number of attendees in
order to build on a solid foundation.
The Advanced Noncommissioned
Officers Course (Armor and Caval-
ry) has enough seats available to
more than meet our annual training
requirements. The problem is ensur-
ing the NCO goes to school at the
right time. Remember the goal! We
want to TRAIN / PROMOTE /
UTILIZE.
We should send the NCO to
school as a senior SSG or SS