What’s your Philosophy on the Basic Skills of a NCO? Are you an ACE NCO? Here is My Philosophy, let me know what you think.

My Philosophy: All NCOs must perfect and master the three basic skills of a NCO.

Accountability: An NCO must first and foremost learn and master the skill of accountability; this is the Primary skill of the Noncommissioned Officer.  How does the Army do accountability on its level?  It uses two documents, the MTO&E and the TDA.  What is the difference between the two?  The MTO&E identifies deployable units with a war-time mission and the TDA identifies non-deployable units with a real-world mission.  The NCO does accountability on a much smaller scale.  The NCO puts Soldiers in formations, receives the report and accounts for Soldiers.  However, accountability is not as simple as that, it spirals into many other things.  A Soldier is accountable to an NCO, because of the lawful orders that NCO issues and vice versa, the NCO is accountable to the Soldier, because of the NCOs primary mission, Train and Lead Soldiers.

Communication: This is the second skill of the Noncommissioned Officer; it is the key to everything.  An NCO is responsible for information dissemination; this is the means by which missions are explained in detail and subsequently accomplished.  Once an NCO has Soldiers in formation and is ready to execute a mission, the mission must be explained clearly and precisely.  Without the proper and timely dissemination of the Commander's intent the mission of the unit and overall Army cannot be accomplished.  Feedback is a vital part of the communication process, which is why an NCO must follow up on any orders given during the information dissemination process.

Equipment: Every NCO is an Equipment Custodian, from the day you joined the Army to the day you ETS, retire or get separated for whatever reason, as an NCO you will be required to learn, maintain and teach several pieces of equipment.  The uniforms (Class A, B and C to include APFT), the weapons, the vehicles, the MOS related tools and the references and publications are all pieces of equipment that NCOs must master on all levels i.e., as a Soldier, as a MOS and as a NCO.  NCOs must learn, then teach and eventually employ every piece of equipment that the big green machine has to offer in both garrison and in combat.