Air University Review, January-February 1977

The Unknown Professional Soldier

ASK any military leader to give an after-dinner speech to or about NCOs, and everyone worth the salt on the meal preceding his remarks will, like Kipling, refer at least once to the NCO as "the backbone of the Army," or the Air Force, or whatever the appropriate service. Such predictable conduct at the speaker's podium, like behavior under fire or in any other stressful situation, is primarily a matter of past experience and conditioning. Those with a full military career have had enough personal experience confirm the importance of the NCO to the success of any military organization that making the "backbone" analogy is almost instinctive.

The Air Force considers its NCO corps so valuable that it has recently made and is still making an extensive effort to improve the NCO's status. Despite these recent efforts and the long-recognized importance of the NCO to the military, one key question has not been satisfactorily answered: Is the NCO a member of the military "profession" or simply a government worker in uniform in contrast to certain commissioned officers who are professional military men?

The purpose of the article is to address this question. Whether or not it provides an acceptable answer is another matter. Finding such an answer depends on understanding that:

1) Reputable outside observers of military affairs have not considered the NCO a member of the military profession.

2) The Air Force NCO has perceived and reacted to this exclusion in several ways. .

3) Recent Air Force efforts to improve the NCO corps, though extensive, needed, and effective, will not be complete until the NCO's status in the profession is adequately examined.

4) Continued disregard of the issue could have potentially serious consequences.

5) An adequate examination of this issue is not possible until at least three inhibiting attitudes within the military are recognized and removed.

These five points indicate both the essence and the broad outline of the discussion that follows. The underlying theme is that some of the most serious personnel problems facing the Air Force and the military cannot be fully understood, much less solved, outside the context of this issue. Although the specifics of the discussion are primarily Air Force oriented, the issue is probably not restricted to the Air Force. In fact, it may be a source of even greater aggravation to career Army and Marine Corps NCOs responsible for leading troops in combat.

The most commonly accepted view of the NCO's "professional" status has come from outside the military. This is not surprising, considering the relatively restricted professional autonomy of the American military profession (especially when compared to the military in other countries and other professions in this country). Civilian theoreticians determine much of the American military's guiding strategy; politicians select its senior leaders and can specify its membership qualifications and composition; and men in mufti have written the most comprehensive descriptions of the nature of the profession and its relation to the state.

The major authorities in the latter group, of course, are Samuel P. Huntington and Morris Janowitz. Differing in their disciplinary approaches to the study of the military and in their conclusions about the degree of basic conservatism within the military, both place the NCO outside the "real" military profession. The expertise-responsibility-corporateness conceptualization of the military profession in Huntington's The Soldier and the State explicitly excludes the NCO. Right from the beginning, Huntington addresses the sloppy and confusing use of "professional," which has "obscured the difference between the career enlisted man who is professional in the sense of one who works for, monetary gain and the career officer who is professional in the very different sense, of one who pursues a "higher calling" in the service of society." The difference is so obvious to Janowitz in The Profession, al Soldier that it is not even discussed. The professional soldier is an officer. Period.

In fairness to both scholars, it should be noted that their interest is focused on professional military elites, a group excluding not only NCOs but most officers as well. In the process, however, they debar the NCO from the profession at large: Huntington by direct statement, Janowitz more by assumption. Even those studies that have concentrated exclusively on the enlisted man, such as American Enlisted Man: The Rank & File in Today’s Military by Charles C. Moskos, Jr., and the earlier The American Soldier by Samuel A. Stouffer et al., viewed the enlisted man and NCOs as sociological phenomena in uniform rather than members of the military profession. The latter possibility is not even seriously considered.

This theoretical exclusion of the NCO from the military profession by the academics has been experienced and acted upon in actuality by the Air Force NCO in several ways. The establishment and, in recent years, the phenomenal growth of the Air Force Sergeants Association (AFSA) have occurred not least because of a perceived lack of adequate attention to enlisted concerns by the longer established and much larger Air Force Association (AF A). Although the AF A opens its membership to all ranks, spells "air power" as one word (with power inseparable from air), and speaks with unequaled eloquence on its behalf to anyone who will listen, AFSA membership (enlisted and former enlisted only) has grown from about 8000 in 1971 to more than 51,000 today. Within the Air Force, the exclusion of the subject of the NCO from the deliberations of the professional mainstream has also been noticed and commented on by NCOs. In a 1973/ study for the Air Force Senior NCO Academy, "The Air Force NCO, Motivation or Complacency," Senior Master Sergeant 'Michael L. Farino and Chief Master Sergeant Carroll E. Vaughn wrote that "professional military publications such, as the Air University Review and the Air Force Magazine have largely ignored the NCO." They also indicated that their attempts to collect authoritative background for their study were "fruitless."

The growth of the AFSA and the observations of Sergeants Farino and Vaughn are specific reactions directly attributable to the "professional" exclusion of the NCO. In a more general sense, the exclusion has also been partly responsible for the long-term dissatisfaction within the Air Force NCO corps about its status and prestige. Unfortunately, this source of that dissatisfaction has never been openly identified. As a result, recent and ongoing efforts by the Air Force to improve NCO status are still incomplete. In no way should this detract from either the laudable motives behind or the effectiveness of many of these efforts. In fact, they may be the most important internally generated Air Force personnel actions of the past five years. In a military institution already deserving its reputation for progressive personnel policies, this would be no small accomplishment.

Yet, when one considers the debatable status of the NCO in the profession, the total impact of the efforts becomes somewhat paradoxical. Some unintentionally reflect a move toward, and thus support for, inclusion of the NCO in the corporate profession. Others reveal a serious disregard of the NCO's professional exclusion as an important, if not central, factor in the status and prestige problem. A brief review of recent activity in this area will make these conflicting aspects more apparent.

MANY of the frustrations, problems, gripes, misconceptions, and positive suggestions for improvement that had existed in and about the NCO corps for at least the previous fifteen years crystallized at the highest levels of Air Force thinking during the summer of 1975. At that time, the Air Force Management Improvement Group, as part of its primary goal of enhancing the quality of Air Force life, concentrated on possible measures to improve the status and abilities of Air Force NCOs. A cross section of ranks, specialties, and commands participated, including several representatives from the areas most concerned with personnel perceptions and policies: , information and personnel. Meanwhile, , many major commands and nonpersonnel specialties were already finding ways to provide NCOs, especially senior NCOs, more challenging and responsible duties.

As a result of these efforts, existing NCO grade structure and titles have undergone a thorough examination and transformation to a three-tier force for management purposes; skill descriptions and codes have been reworked and combined, with a trend toward the emergence of the so-called generalist supervisor / manager over the technician in the upper NCO ranks; senior NCOs are being systematically assigned to positions previously filled by commissioned officers; and the leadership and managerial abilities of the entire NCO corps are being extensively developed in resident NCO academies, at specific bases selected to test a realignment of education responsibilities in this area under a single local manager, and across the Air Force by traveling teams from the USAF Leadership and Management Development Center.

On the one hand, some of these changes effectively erase many former. distinctions between officers and-NCOs in terms of responsibility and position. As such, they inadvertently provide support for the incorporation of the NCO in the military's professional concept. On the other hand, not only has there been no mention of this possibility, the primary reasons given for instituting many of the changes indicate that all of us in the Air Force, officers and NCOs, may have been Homerically nodding on this particular issue. According to a recent Air Force News Service editorial, "NCO Prestige and the Three-Tier Enlisted Force":

For the past several years, noncommissioned officers (NCOs) have expressed the feeling of losing their rank and job prestige. One reason is a perceived confusion over roles and responsibilities and a feeling that NCO talent is being underutilized. A contributing factor is that AFR 39-6, "Duties and Responsibilities of the Noncommissioned Officer," specifies just one all-inclusive role description for grades E-4 through E-9.

Also, questions have continually arisen over whether the E-4 is an NCO. The feeling exists that "everyone is a sergeant, "therefore lessening the prestige of holding NCO status.

Along with this, similar questions exist as to whether the E- 7 is considered a senior NCO. The end result was a clear indication that the Air Force needed to face the NCO issues if they were going to insure a quality, productive force for the future.

Obviously, the possibility that the more fundamental issue may be the NCO in relation to the basic corporate concept of the military profession provides a different perspective on the above reasons. From this' perspective, NCO prestige depends not on whether an E-4 is an NCO or an E-7 a senior NCO but on whether an NCO of any rank can be a corporate member of the military profession. If he can be, then regardless of whatever other duty differences exist among various ranks, there is one all-inclusive role description that not only all NCOs but all NCOs and officers share as military professionals. Professional responsibility varies only in degree, never in kind, within the profession.

Overall, one of the most important results of recent Air Force efforts to improve NCO status may be the clear indication given of what else needs to be done. Identifying the missing piece in a 1000-piece puzzle is much easier after the other 999 pieces have been assembled. The missing piece in this case indicates what basis, if any, exists for including the NCO in the military profession proper. When completed, this puzzle should portray a satisfactory working concept of the profession.

By far the greatest pressure for finding that piece and re-examining the military's entire professional concept currently comes from outside the military. It is generated by the spectre of military unionization. As in other issues examined earlier, most of the debate over unionization has not even acknowledged much less seriously considered perhaps the most important factor involved, that is, the NCO-military profession question. Military unionization, above all else, depends on equating the officer-enlisted relation to a management versus labor basis, with all the divergent interests inherent to that view. Such a distinction within the military is false. The previous brief description of changing NCO roles should have made this apparent. The only meaningful distinction in the military is between the professional and the nonprofessional. It is to the everlasting credit of the professionalism of many NCOs that they have recognized the disaster unionization would be for the military. If any doubt exists about the ability of NCOs, as a group, to accept and place the essence of the military profession above self, the unequivocal statement of the AFSA against unionization should help dispel it. All of which seems to indicate that the exclusion of the NCO from the corporate concept of the profession may actually be more theoretical than real. It certainly is not very practical.

To recommend, at this point, that as of 0800 tomorrow the professional concept of the American military should incorporate eligible NCOs would be easy, irresponsible, presumptuous, and quite possibly wrong. No single member of the military has the authority, the wisdom, or even the right to make such a recommendation. Clearly, however, it is necessary now for that professional concept to be re-examined with the prospect of including the NCO. There are valid points to be made on both sides of the issue. To ensure that an objective and thorough examination of the NCO-military profession issue can occur, the existence of at least three attitudes that could inhibit such an examination must be recognized. Once recognized, these inhibiters can be discarded and a truly "professional" debate can occur.

Conceivably, any debate on this issue could be inhibited on both the pro and the con side and by doubts that there should even be a debate. Some NCOs who could contribute valid support for professional incorporation might hesitate to do so to avoid appearing self-serving. In a similar way, those with equally valid reasons for maintaining the older, more theoretically tidy concept of the profession might not put them forth in order to avoid appearance of elitism. In the interest of thorough consideration on all sides, such emotionalism must be excluded from the outset. The major inhibiter of all is probably the notion that the entire exercise is improper because it does violate the traditional concept of the profession as best articulated by Huntington. Anyone arguing from this position should consider the following.

First of all, as one respected military leader pointed out in these pages only last year, even the term "military professionalism" has only recently become widely known and used. In fact, anyone who has served in the military long enough to be eligible for twenty-year retirement benefits signed up before most people were aware there was a military profession-a military, yes; a career force, yes; but a profession, no. The parameters, characteristics, and essential nature of the American military profession are still being determined. Moreover, those best able to define any profession are the members of that profession, including the military. While certain attributes, such as a long-term commitment to the higher ideals and ethos of the military, may be agreed on as basic to the definition of a professional, other distinctions, such as that made between "managers of violence'" and other specially skilled military members, are not necessarily the final or only basis for identifying the military professional.

Finally, in the absence of conscription, the all-voluntary membership of the American armed forces can be placed in four concentric groups: at the outer edge and leaving as soon as possible are the noncareerists whose commitment goes no further than the end of their current enlistment; one ring in are those who plan to stay long enough to qualify for retirement benefits but who see their service as a job, nothing more; next are those other careerists whose sense of service and dedication remains with them on and off duty, in and out of uniform; finally, at the nucleus, are the careerists, relatively few in number, who are the innovators, pacesetters, and leaders. The members of this last group are a part of the military profession just as clearly as the members of the first are not. It is within the middle two groups that the boundaries of the profession are ill-defined.

CLEARLY, this issue must be confronted and thoroughly examined. If it is not, many recent advances by and for NCOs, including the three-tier approach to managing the force, could degenerate into a bureaucratic shell game.

Major Pember W. Rocap (M.A., Texas Tech) is assigned to the Air Force Logistics Management Center, Gunter Air Force Station, Alabama. He enlisted as an airman third class, attended Officer Training School, and has been assigned to a variety of duties, from aircraft maintenance officer in tactical fighter wings in T AC and P ACAF to Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff. Major Rocap is a graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College and author of other published articles.

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