U.S. Army photo by Terrence Bell

A few weeks after graduating from CGSC, I began to reflect on the past year, particularly regarding how all field grade officers need to understand the importance of the Officer-NCO relationship at senior levels. The announcement of the new Sergeant Major of the Army triggered many of these thoughts. I had met SMA Daily in passing while walking through the Lewis & Clark building at Fort Leavenworth, but he was only there with the CSA to talk with other senior leaders meeting at the Combined Arms Center, not to speak to students at CGSC. 

Here I was, a few months after completing a phase of my required intellectual development, and now I was back out in the real world being “one of them,” those iron majors who run the Army. I thought about our guest speaker opportunities during the year at Fort Leavenworth, and what stuck out was not the work we completed or the lectures we sat through but, rather, the missed opportunities to spark a cultural change in the Army to give senior NCOs a more active voice. 

Something as simple as including senior NCOs in planning meetings might seem like an easy fix. From my experience, though, it often does not occur until plans are in motion. In part, there is a stigma against bringing an NCO into the planning process centered on the idea that officers work in the “white light, hot coffee” while NCOs oversee soldiers and their daily activities. There is an absolute balance that must be found in these two ideas, but the impact to the organization can be great when the proper mix is used. 

CGSC graduates have all read the theories of Clausewitz and Jomini and sat through the lectures from general officers during our formal education, but we never heard a formal discussion from a senior non-commissioned officer. The only senior NCO I heard speak from the stage at CGSC was SGM Gilpin, who happened to be traveling with the Army IG. SGM Gilpin is the senior enlisted advisor to the Army Inspector General and a former Division Command Sergeant Major of the 3rd Infantry Division. His discussion with the officers at CGSC occurred more by chance than by design. His talking points stayed in line with the IG brief and did not discuss the officer or NCO corps. Not once did we receive any formal lecture or have a Q&A session with a senior non-commissioned officer on the relationships between majors and the senior NCOs we interact with on a daily basis. 

By this point in our careers, we understand the interactions between officers and NCOs from the perspective of a company grade officer, but not as a field grade officer. It is different. Right or wrong, the interaction between a company grade officer and senior NCOs does not always seem to occur on an equal footing. The way a field grade officer and a senior NCO interacts, by contrast, tends to be based more on the mutual respect each person has for the other’s experience. Given the high OPTEMPO of the military and the commitments the United States maintains around the world, it is hard to find a field grade officer or a senior NCO without experience in executing some form of training in Large Scale Combat Operations. Whether at a Combat Training Center, or during a rotation as part of the Regionally Aligned Forces Missions, everyone is training under the doctrine provided in FM 3-0. Since there is a mutual understanding of this knowledge base, the ability for the field grade officer and senior NCOs to mutually support the planning process of their shared organization is essential. In order to have a more effective organization, we must erase the idea that some planning is for officers and some is for NCOs. 

Without the wisdom, guidance, and mentorship from senior NCOs with whom I have served, I would not be the officer I am today. It is important to note that one can be mentored by someone of “lower” rank. Again, though, a bias exists against field-grade officers being mentored this way, unlike second lieutenants, who generally receive the advice to “go find your NCO so they can teach you XYZ.”  Why is it not equally acceptable to continue to seek their guidance and recommendations as we move into planning and executing at higher levels? We forget that we have an abundance of talent that exists within our formations that can help refine the detail and nuance that the officer corps sometimes misses. The fact that a soldier has to drive, walk, or fly over the blue arrow that is drawn on a map can occasionally be overlooked until someone who has walked a poorly drawn arrow weighs in. 

From my experience in tactical planning and orders development, the officer corps tends to huddle together and forget the knowledge base in the room that the NCO corps holds. Both the officer and senior NCO are responsible for this misstep, and that is where understanding the Officer-NCO relationship at the field grade level can benefit the entire organization. The days of separation with the Officers Mess and NCO club have gone away, but the Army continues to see the Officer in the building working on the plans and looking at maps, while the NCO stays with the troops. While this is not a bad way of doing things, it can make for an uncomfortable situation when the senior NCOs are finally brought into the planning cycle. Both the Iron Major and the senior NCO should have discussions about what each learned during their PME. This sharing of knowledge will not only help the development of each individual, but it also will benefit the entire organization.

CGSC can take some simple steps to bring about this necessary cultural change by replacing a retired general officer’s canned speech with a Q&A session with a senior Sergeant Major or a panel of Sergeants Major and Master Sergeants. We had panels to discuss ethics, media relationships, and cyber warfare, but never a panel of current or former Division and Corps Command Sergeants Major to discuss the officer-NCO relationship at the field grade level. What better time or place to discuss those relationships then right before taking on a Key Development position or serving on a Division or Corps level staff?

The field grade years are the time to give back to the Army by helping to move it in the right direction. Doing so is impossible without the help of the NCO corps and the hard-working men and women who make up the backbone of the Army. By taking the time to develop these relationships and use the full strength of the knowledge base that exists in the Army, planning will run more smoothly and will receive greater buy-in from the formations than if the officer corps tries to do it all alone. I do not have all the answers for what the right balance might be for having senior NCOs join in the planning process, but if I can generate a discussion on how we can work together to identify it, this article will not have been in vain. 

MAJ Jeremy Flake is currently the Brigade FSO for the 1st Air Cav Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. As a Field Artillery officer, he has served in both Armored and Airborne formations. He has operational experience in Afghanistan and has deployed as part of the Rotational Forces to Europe. He is a recent graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.