Should NCO rank progression and commissioning be tied to educational degrees?

I agree with SGM Dawson, 100 %. The worst mistake the Army ever made, was to eliminate the Specialist ranks above E4. And, I am "old" Army, (62-65), when Specialist 5 and above were common. Who the hell thought that ALL soldiers have to be NCO's if they want to move beyond E4.

CW3 Kevin Storm - I disagree, Mr. Storm. Why saddle an Electronic warfare specialist, who has highly desirable skills that pay significantly above NCO pay in the private sector, with the requirements of an NCO? It just doesn't make sense!

You realize that it was MILPO/PERSCOM/USAHRC that interfered with the Specialist grades by overlooking or ignoring the coding between a unit needing a Specialist E-5/6/7 or NCO E-5/6/7 to fill the vacancy... Think about it... a CBT Arms Battalion forwards a request for a PLT SGT and MILPO/PERSCOM/USAHRC issues orders to SPC-7 who has never in their career been assigned to a CBT Arms BN. The same applies when a CBT SVC SPT or CBT SPT BN forwards a request for a SPC-6 and gets a SSG who hasn't worked that side of their MOS since he was an E-4...
Then we also have a numbers pyramid that is correspondent to the enlisted/officer grades, as you go up in rank the fewer number of that rank/grade are needed... So why would DOD/DA pay for an E-5/6/7 that has the same amount of authority as a SPC-4??? There goes your pay role budget...

Agreed. I served for 6 years and can count on one hand the number of leaders I respected for reasons other than because I was legally required to.

CSM William Everroad - Comparing law enforcement to military rank structure seems to me to be a case of apples and oranges. The LEO's have a fixed set of tasks and skills for all members. The US Army does not. While the basic KSA'a are warfighter related, there are myriad KSA's in effect throughout the force. Removing NCO's above E-6 would be a horrible mistake, in my estimation. I think the Specialist ranks should be restored, rather than NCO ranks discarded. I don't really care when we became the backbone of the Army, but that is exactly what we are. The officers dictate policy, the NCO implements it. The NCO trains and teaches junior officers, at least the ones willing to listen.

Sr. NCO’s are the ones that should mentor soldiers regardless of their rank. It requires tact and professionalism. Most officers I have worked for were very professional and respected my opinion and advice.

On my first assignment as an 2nd Lt I quickly learned the value of my SMSgt as a mentor, a wise counsel, and a really smart guy. I always remembered that he told me the many reasons he never wanted to be an officer.

CSM William Everroad - BLUF: Let us not forget, or avoid, the absolute truth that Armies (militaries) are not supposed to be efficient (use only the minimum amount of resources and people that might get the job done and save money, and have a low cost, flat management structure). Our job is to accomplish a battlefield, or even humanitarian, mission and make sure it is done right the first time. In Vietnam we were hamstrung by fighting a war on a budget...very efficient, but not effective. Armies win by destroying the enemy army...nothing less. You can not do that by focusing on efficiency (the use of the least amount of materiel, peopole and time you think may be sufficient...in war none of those things ever are), you focus on maximum resources, most bodies and biggest bangs you can find and them apply them in great abundance.

In my day we were told that the reason for the number of extra officers and NCOs was so every existing unit had enough leaders AND so that others could go to professional school, work on degrees, lead training units and be Academy/ROTC instructors. AND in wartime most of those in schools and other assignments would be redirected to provide trained, experienced leaders for new units with new recruits that would be able to pluss up the service rapidly and with a minimum degrading of effectiveness. You can grab a young person from civilian life and train them to do Army stuff fairly quickly, but you can not go to a college MBA program and find a Captain, Major, LTC, COL or Flag officer. This is a lesson we learned in the mid 1800s and it led to our Officer and NCO training programs as early as the 1880s and 1890s.

Think about it this way: very few privates, e-4/s or even Sgt E-5s have the motivation to do significantly more than their job description. A Team leader learns most of his skills from his squad or section leader, the squad leader learns from the PSG, the PSG from the 1SG and the 1SG from the CSM. One of a leaders primary roles is to mentor his direct reports so they can mentor their direct reports, ad infinitum. An NCO at the platoon and above levels also has the job of helping to train his officer. I knew enough as a 2LT about tactics and leadership to be a danger until my PSG mentored me. As a Company COmmander, I still needed my 1SG's input to help me understand, and manage, the minutia at that level of leadership.

I spent 11 years as an Army Infantry Officer. Afterwards I spent 33 years in various supervisory roles in corporate America. Ours (Army) is a very effective, and flexible, structure. It allows for quick and forceful response in an infinite range of situations from the battlefield to disaster relief, to cleaning up a fluid spill in the motorpool, and even to gettng a barracks GI'ed for an inspection.

In my 33 years a a civilian, every place I worked was looking for ways to flatten the organization by recreating/streamlining/removing management structures. I saw matrix management used as a way to try to circumvent poor leadership by spreading the blame around to the point no one could be held responsible. I worked on self-directed teams where each person was pretty darn good at their job, but there was no one person responsible for directing the effort. Imagine an Orchestra, or even a garage band, where no one is directing the effort, The Tubas are playing The Colonel Bogey March, the trumpets are playing Stars and Stripes Forever, the strings are playing Flight of the Valkeries, and the percussion sections are playing Wipe Out.

In every case, this pursuit of efficiency led to decreased effectiveness. While there are places for these and other management models, there is always a need to acknowledge the span of control of leaders is finite, soldiers and employees still need to be supervised. In places I worked we had cases where customer service folks were stealing credit card information, leaving early and having friends clock them out, and adding their friends to someone else's account. An example of the latter, on steroids, is Wells Fargo, who over a decade looked the other way, even incentivized, its people creating multiple accounts for customers without customer approval because employees received a bonus based on the number of accounts they opened.

Two final points: (1) Soldiers do well those things the commander/leader checks. An officer is often overwhelmed with other stuff that is critical so can only spend so much time overseeing. That is where we rely on our NCOs, whom we train, for whom we set standards, and whom we then allow to be their best selves to be our eyes and ears, and voices. (2) The military is not a business, It is a service. Services are designed to get a job done, and rely on the government to provide the resources. While there is a responsibility not to be wasteful, the military has to stand up and tell the civilian government that there is a cost to the security we have guaranteed for so many generations.