Is today's Army an officer's Army?

I have to disagree.

The Army, as it is today, is the Army as it has always been. Officers Command (Plan, provide vision, and resource) and are ultimately Responsible for all that happens or fails to happen. NCOs, are the backbone of our Army, and make our Army vastly different (better) than most any other Army on the planet. NCOs are the ones who make everything happen day in and day out. Officers Command, NCOs make it happen.

Officers and NCOs have very distinct roles, which if you need to read it, is laid out quite well in AR 600-20.

Command Sergeant Majors, as an example Command Nothing. I heard that from a my Battalion CSM, when I was a Battalion XO. As he explained, their (his) power, all NCO power comes from the Officers, and what they enable. That can be different, based on the individual Commander.

For me, I enabled and empowered my NCOs to do whatever needed to be done. I always told our Soldiers (include my officers) if PSG, 1SG, CSM said it... you can assume I was saying it. NCOs in my branch are the X-factor. MP Branch is essentially a squad based branch.

NCOs have very distinct roles and responsibilities, as do we Os.

If I succeeded as an officer and as a Commander, it was all because of the NCOs who had my 6.

I hate to break it to them but Officers have always had the power in the Army. I know it may be hard to believe but the Army has always been lead by officers. Now the NCOs have risen and have a greater influence today than they ever have. I hope they realize that there wasn't even a E8 or E9 pay grade until 1958. Until then it was more a position than a rank. Since then NCOs have gained so many more responsibilities and duties. But NCOs don't command any large bodies of soldiers. It is like saying that the Executives of a company run the company. Yeah, they do but they couldn't do it without the managers and workers. And we would be complete failure if it wasn't for NCOs.

I am so tired of this Officers have all the power. Yeah we do but we trust our NCOs to advise us. Every command in the Army is held by an Officer, minus some commandant positions and few rare situations. But we don't have an easy life as others make it out to be. Sure we don't fill sand bags or pull fire guard but that is not what I am here for. There is not a factor of equality in this. A command is very demanding. But so few really see what really goes on. A lot of the times is the lower enlisted that don't see this. If you were to ask a 1SG or a CSM about officers do they will tell you.

NCOs are the backbone of the Army but the backbone is there to support the head. I think a lot of them forget that.

Seeing as how all our power/authority derives from and is granted to us by Commissioned Officers, this whole debate seems like a non starter..

I have said it before on RP and I will regurgitate it here. There are duties and responsibilities that NCOs are inherently responsible for that should be transparent to their officer counterpart and no it's not NCO business but some people call it that. Unfortunately for the NCO Corps, NCOs have forgotten what those duties and responsibilities are and how to do them.

Officers have been doing their thing for the last 13 years, leading/commanding Soldiers in combat. NCOs have been executing those orders given by their officers and leading their teams/squads. Problem is when you get home from combat it is a different OE, the officers are still in charge (always) but the mission has changed. There is training to plan and conduct, equipment draw/turn-in, and other unit operations that require the officers attention. NCOs should be involved in those but it's the officers main responsibilities.

Let's take for example property, platoon property specifically. Should the platoon leader be worried about property? Yes, he/she is signed for everything so they should be worried but, they shouldn't be. Have you ever seen a SFC PSGs NCOER under duties and responsibilities there is always a blurb "responsible vehicles, weapons and equipment valued in excess of ONE BILLION DOLLARS" (Dr. Evil voice). That's such a crock of shit, that PSG probably isn't sign for $1 worth of equipment but, he/she should be. Accountability is a NCO responsibility, it's a whole section on the back of our evaluations. The PL should sub hand receipt every single piece of equipment to the PSG, now that's responsibility. I had my PL do that when I was a PSG and he didn't have to worry about property at all. I sub receipted it down to the squad leaders and checked it periodically. My PL was free to plan training and I received justifiable bullets on my NCOER.

Let's take maintenance. Should the PL be worried about maintenance? Yes, again he is signed for the vehicles/weapons and will get his ass chewed if his OR falls below 90%. Should he be attending the maintenance meetings with the company and battalion XO? Hell no he shouldn't, the PSG should be doing that. The PSG should be tracking maintenance, managing the 2407s, communicating with the BMNCO and XOs. This allows the PL to plan training. (Armor and Mechanized Infantry NCOs are pretty good at this, Light Infantry and Stryker guys suck).

The bottom line is, I see PLs doing the things above and more instead of their PSGs. The PL is doing everything and everyone is wondering why the platoon is so ate up, which bleeds over into the company. Daily business should be conducted by NCOs who should in turn brief the PL on the status of the daily business to keep him in the loop in case the company or battalion commander ask a question.

If you want the "power" you think you should have as a NCO, you need to earn it by showing your officers you can handle it. If you don't your officer will do everything for you because you have made yourself irrelevant. This will make you believe that it is an officer run Army.

Soapbox complete!

It's not that they have more power. Officers have always had the same power, but a lot of it is due to the waning of the NCOs authority and influence that has fueled this perception in my opinion. Couple that with the educational advances within the Officer Education System and the changing landscape of the Army, Officers are becoming more in tune with these changes as opposed to the slower rate of advance in the NCOES. The Sergeants Major Academy has recently done a good job of addressing these discrepancies and are churning out some really sound and professional Senior NCOs now so hopefully that stigma will soon disappear.

It is supposed to be an Officers Army. If it wasn't, it would imply that they are weak and incompetent. Officers are responsible for their unit as the commander. If it fails, so do they!

My last Regimental Commander had a great method of leadership. It was simply for him and his Officers to provide the "what", and for the NCOs to provide the "how".

Officers make policy and give commands/orders. NCOs ensure those commands/orders are executed. It's that simple.

If one would rather provide the"what" instead of the "how", do what is required to become an officer! If not, go execute!

I have heard this statement many times throughout my career. Officers have always had the "power," but without NCO's that power is useless. If you heard this in response to officers assuming an NCO's responsibilities, then shame on your NCO's. Authority not exercised is authority given up. NCO's should not be afraid to tell officers to step back, they got matters in hand. Most officers are busy enough with their own duties and will only pick up an NCO's duties if they see them not being performed or being performed substandard.

Gentlemen, NCOs are the backbone of the Army and always will be. It's not us against them but both following different roles to get the job done and take care of the troops.

This is hilarious. NCO's are more empowered today than they have been in history. If you've heard some comments about today's Army being an officer's Army, it's probably from relatively young NCO's who joined after 2003 and are comparing their levels of responsibility with what they have seen in combat. You can't compare a combat experience with a training experience. The two levels of responsibility and requirements will NEVER equal out and they never have. Look back at Vietnam and the requirements there for an NCO to the requirements after Vietnam in the training of the late 70's through the 90's which created the best Army in the world after a horrible performance overall in the 60's and 70's. The things NCO's do today in a peace-time Army are more inclusive and empowered than they EVER have been...without a doubt. It's a GD fact. Ask CSM's who were privates in 1990 and SGT's in 1995. They will be able to tell the difference. Don't ask a SSG who was a private in 2007 and a SGT in 2011.

In any command position you will have an Officer and an NCO, we all agree to that. The Officer is expected to run the show, anything goes wrong it's that Officers Butt on the line. Having said that, that officer greatly on their NCO's to make important decisions because the Officer is not always there with the troops. At platoon level that LT also relies on that NCO to train and Guid them. In my 21 years experience most of my officers relied on me to help run the show, keeping in mind he always had the final say. Keeping that in mind I did have a rare few 2LTs who thought they could run the show and demanded to take his education over my experience and refused to listen to my input and he completely ruined his career between the train up at home station to our rotation at JRTC. My point is yes the Officer runs the show but still needs their NCOs for their experience to help them to make those sound judgements