Should NCOs conduct staff rides and battle studies at the unit level?

Unless you  as an NCO take the initiative and buckle the system, there is no really many opportunities for NCOs to be mentored or pushed beyond the regular NCOES like Officers do. Sure, we have NCOPD sometimes, but unless you are at Division level or above, your chances to participate in these extra activities is almost zero.

The end result is that when we retire, we are at a disadvantage as related to Officers who have same time in service as we do or even less.

We are always told to hold back. Usually, is the Officers who attend conferences and the likes. When we ask, we are told that we are not invited.

Bottom line, unless you as an NCO take the initiative, you shouldn't expect to be prepared for the future. There are few and far between officers that will take you under their wing, but, those are not many. And, for some weird reason, Senior NCOs do not take the time to prepare NCOs for anything else other than correct infractions on juniors, fix our uniforms and prepare NCOER's or fix ERBs.

Yes, upholding standards is important, but that junior that you just smoked could benefit more by being talked about TSP than push ups.

Lets see NCOS come up with good extra studies/rides that will prepare our NCO Corps to be more professional and to have a life after the Army. Leadership is a bit more than DnC.