The US Army Non-Commissioned Officer during the Vietnam War
The US Army Non-Commissioned Officer during the Vietnam War Non-Commissioned Officer is a military position that is obtained by the servicemen who do not have the commission, which is the document that
is issued to define officer’s status. Usually the NCO is understood as under-officer or sub-officer. In the time of the formation of Colonial Army during the American Revolution the Non-Commissioned Officer Corps did not
exist. This position appeared later under special circumstances and conditions. However, at the very beginning there were Army positions that related to the NCO’s. These were corporals, quartermaster-sergeants and
sergeant-majors. As the United States Army and Navy gained wartime experience the role of trained professional NCO's grew as well as the need of specific training. This especially concerned such conflicts as Vietnam War. After the World War Two both the Army and the Navy started to pay special attention to the training of Non-Commissioned Officers. However, it was the War in Vietnam that accelerated and rearranged this training. Thus, contemporary status of Non-Commissioned officers was vastly conditioned by that war.
The advance in the training of Non-Commissioned Officers and junior soldiers began soon after the World War Two and continued thoroughly in the time of Vietnam War. Even before it the Korean War of 1950-1953 showed the need to properly operate in unrecognized terrain using platoon size units, which were under the responsibility of NCO's. Therefore, in 1958 to ensure better distribution of responsibility two new ranks were introduced
(Perkioniemi). These were E8 and E9. Later, before the beginning of the war in Vietnam, the new understanding of the part of Non-Commissioned Officers in the Asian theater appeared due to the fact that the existing training
program, adopted in 1952 did not reflect the essence of the war in the jungle and rough terrain, traditional for Indo-China. Thus the status and the role of NCO's in both the Army and the Navy had to be elaborated in
accordance to new circumstances.
The middle of the 1960s saw major changes in the training of Non-Commissioned Officers. The peculiarities of the Viet Nam territory demanded the proper use of the experience, gained in Korean War in the light of the
fact that many missions had to be fulfilled by squad size elements. Moreover, Non-Commissioned Officers faced new responsibilities because of the large number of operations, which were performed under rapidly changing
fighting circumstances and in the decentralized conditions of commanding (Walters). Because of all this, two years after the first American troops set foot in Vietnam, the new training program was presented for the Army
NCO's. This was Non-Commissioned Officer Candidate Course, which included 10 weeks of advanced training (Perkioniemi). This program was launched in order to overcome the shortage of squad and platoon leaders and had moderate success. While …
