Document created: 24 August 04
Air University Review, September-October
1970
Lieutenant Colonel Sigmund Alexander
Since the end of World War II the United States has led the world in a technological revolution unprecedented in the history of mankind. It took 43 years, from the initial flight of the Wright brothers in 1903 until 1946, to make daily scheduled passenger flights across the oceans of the world a reality. The year 1957 witnessed the first feeble Thor firings at Cape Canaveral; eleven years later a Saturn V rocket launched three astronauts to the moon, and they returned safely. The Air Force, too, has reflected great technological advances. It has gone from the C-54 to the C-5, from the P-12 to the F-11.1, from the B-17 to the Minuteman.
America leads the world in this technological revolution because it is capable of transforming new discoveries and techniques into new products and hardware in minimum time. Specific examples include computers, molecular electronics, synthetics, jet propulsion, and automation. One of the principal reasons the United States has become world leader is that it has large numbers of engineers and administrators capable of exploiting any technological breakthrough. The basis of this capability lies in the educational opportunities afforded by the GI Bill of Rights. Since the GI bill, higher education has become available to almost anyone who is capable and has the desire for it. Our highly complex society requires educated people and offers little opportunity to the uneducated.
The Air Force recognizes the importance of technical training and education to its NCO’s, and its technical schools are among the finest in the world. Unfortunately, the opportunities for professional and formal education afforded the NCO are not on a par with those for technical education.
NCO education, like that for officers, may be considered as falling into three categories:
Technical ― which is designed to train the individual for a specific skill activity, such as radar technician, clerk typist, jet engine mechanic.
Professional ― which is designed to improve the individual’s ability as a manager of men or materiel and prepare him for positions of greater responsibility. Professional schooling includes the base management school, NCO prep or leadership schools, and the NCO academies.
Formal ― which is the education one receives at civilian institutions―high school, college, and university.
Of the three, the one on which the Air Force places the greatest emphasis is the technical. The reason is simple enough: the Air Force needs mechanics to maintain aircraft, clerk typists to handle paperwork, etc. During wartime, the programs of the technical schools are shortened, accelerated, and expanded. For example, with respect to jet engine mechanics, a new base may be opened to train them; the number of hours required to train them may be reduced, while the training itself is accelerated.
Since the need for technical training is basic to the mission of the Air Force, it is the one area which is least vulnerable to reduction. There is little debate about the need for technical training. It may be changed, it may be modified, but it cannot be eliminated.
Professional training, on the other hand, is extremely vulnerable to the changing needs of the Air Force. The results of professional training are not readily visible; by having an NCO attend an NCO academy, the Air Force does not obtain a new dental technician, clerk typist, or mechanic. How does one measure the increased potential of an NCO? The reply to this question is highly subjective and prejudiced either for or against by the evaluator’s background and experience. Under the best of conditions, only a minority of NCO’s are ever afforded the opportunity for any professional education. The lack of professional training has not kept many NCO’s from achieving highly responsible managerial and leadership positions. Having achieved success, many of them ask, Why have any professional schools at all?
In reality, the Air Force can exist without professional education for NCO’S though not without technical schooling. However, the assimilation of professional knowledge is haphazard at best and leaves gaps in the NCO’S background. The Air Force has become too big and too complex to rely on hit-or-miss exposure during on-the-job training as its principal means of professional education. Henry Ford, though he created the Ford Motor Company, came close to destroying it because he did not realize that he could not run the giant company of 1939 as he had run the Ford Motor Company when it was started in his garage. Can we in the Air Force rely on catch-as-catch-can for professional education? The P-12s are gone and we have the F-111, yet assimilation remains our chief means of professional development of the NCO corps. Professional education for NCO’S must be regarded not as a stepchild but as a requirement equally as important as technical training.
The lack of NCO leadership schools is utterly deplorable. The Air Force continues to leave education of the majority of its new sergeants to osmosis, as it did in the past.
Leadership schools have been established in recent times by major air commands to correct this deficiency by providing the new NCO with basic leadership, management, and communicative skills to enable him to do what was expected of him. These leadership schools exist because the commands which they serve recognize their value and are willing to allocate the manpower and other resources to make them a reality. Their existence is in constant jeopardy, since there is no actual Air Force authorization for them. When money and resources become tight, as at present because of Vietnam, leadership schools are the first to feel the economy axe. Once closed down, they, unlike the phoenix, seldom rise to life again from the ashes. The provision for leadership schools should be firmly established by USAF directive, which should require all commands to create and support them. This is important psychologically, as their status would no longer be in doubt.
At the present time, the most important professional education provided the NCO’S is at the various command NCO academies. Their status is not entirely secure either, as evidenced by the ease with which some were closed down in the name of economy. Their existence should also be firmly established by USAF directive. Thought should be given to whether it would be advisable to establish a single Air Force NCO academy or continue with the present command academy concept. A single Air Force NCO academy could provide a uniform approach toward NCO education. Its position in NCO professional education would be similar to that of the Air Command and Staff College for officers.
The curriculum presently taught at the academies must be expanded to include courses directed toward giving students an understanding of the impact of the computer, mechanization, and automation on the Air Force and the causes and background of the sociological revolution going on in America. Understanding IBM, black power, and SDS is as important to the NCO’S education as understanding SEA.
It is becoming obvious that NCO professional education should not end with the NCO academy and that further schooling is needed for the Air Force master, senior, and chief NCO’S. The whole subject of senior NCO education should be examined with respect to what the senior supervisory NCO needs to know to do a better job. This is not a simple matter and will require a good deal of questioning, fact seeking, analysis, and staff work. The type of school, its location, the length of the course―all are important, and attendance at a senior NCO academy will have to become a prestigious accomplishment if it is to succeed.
Formal education for many NCO’S ends with high school, a GED high school equivalency test, or a few off-duty college courses. It would be desirable for every NCO to want to continue his formal education to a baccalaureate degree. This, however, would be contrary to human nature. Not everyone wants or is capable of achieving a baccalaureate degree. Nevertheless, the opportunity should be offered to all NCO’s who aspire to it.
The Air Force’s education program does allow the NCO such an opportunity. However, I believe greater emphasis should be placed on encouraging NCO’S to avail themselves of educational opportunities, from the NCO’S immediate supervisor to the base and wing commanders. Increased education benefits not only the NCO but the Air Force as a whole.
Technical and managerial competence are both important. Witness the fact that British aircraft engineers are among the most competent and highly creative in the world, yet Boeing and Douglas aircraft dominate the world’s commercial air. Obviously other factors played a part―possibly British management and salesmanship were not as outstanding as British engineering.
The Air Force has existed without professional NCO training and organized education programs in the past. The Air Force of the future cannot, in my opinion, continue to be the qualitative, superior organization it is today without such training.
Are we perhaps being penny-wise and dollar-foolish?
Defense Communications Planning Group
Lieutenant Colonel Sigmund Alexander (M A., University of Rochester) is Logistics Plans Officer, Defense Communications Planning Group. He served with a bombardment wing in Korea and in aircraft control and warning, Vietnam. He worked with student training in industry (AVCO Corporation) and has held navigation and logistics plans positions. Colonel Alexander is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and has been Commandant of the MAC NCO Academy.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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