A ship has different departments that all must function smoothly to make the ship go. The NCOs of this platoon never ceased to impress me and I will remain proud of them until I hang up my uniform for good.īeing an 81-mm mortar platoon commander is like being the captain of a ship. Fehrenbach, the sergeants “behaved the way good sergeants had behaved since the time of Caesar, expecting no nonsense, allowing none.” 1 The corporals were highly competent as well. They knew their jobs and held themselves and their Marines to high standards. Almost immediately, the NCOs of the mortar platoon restored my faith in the NCO corps. I like to contrast this experience with my next platoon, an 81-mm mortar platoon.
#The missing link lost trial
Our work-up would have gone much smoother, but through trial and error, we got to where we needed to be as a unit. It would have been nice had it been that way when I showed up to that platoon, though. It was not pretty at first, but it was what the unit needed to reinstill respect for those who wore the “hard stripes.” I got other NCOs from other duty stations and grew more from our own ranks and we succeeded in fostering a culture in which NCOs were respected. He came in like a wrecking ball and snapped the Marines back into shape. Fortunately, I did not have to do this for long before a sergeant arrived fresh from drill instructor duty. They became the disciplinarians, and lost sight of the bigger picture because they were constantly involved in things that their NCOs should have been doing. I found myself having to play the role of sergeant again, which I did not want to do because some of the worst officers I have seen were prior enlisted guys that went back to being NCOs. They were on a first name basis with their subordinates and they had little respect for themselves, their rank, or their billet. This was because unit leaders let the lance corporals view them as peers. They did not see themselves as anything more than lance corporals with an extra chevron and a blood stripe, and neither did the actual lance corporals. However, my corporals were NCOs in title only. These were the only NCOs in the platoon the rest of the Marines were mostly lance corporals with a few privates first class. The three rifle squad leaders being corporals, and weak corporals at that. I arrived to a platoon without any sergeants. And so, I also witnessed the results of this phenomenon as a junior officer. This was a lost opportunity-not only for the company’s leadership, but for the Marines.Īfter achieving the rank of sergeant, I left active duty only to return five years later as a second lieutenant. Yet, our chain of command rarely consulted the NCOs, whether to explain the intent of a directive or to receive feedback. Our unit had a cadre of very proficient NCOs with impressive combat experience. I witnessed this firsthand as a junior enlisted Marine and an NCO. In such units, the NCO is the missing link in the chain of effective leadership. So, when a unit appears dysfunctional, it is likely this is a unit in which the authority and abilities of the NCOs are stifled. The NCOs are a force multiplier, they bring out the strength of our units. However, some officers, while giving lip service to the abilities of the NCOs, micromanage them and prevent them from realizing their true potential-at their own peril. NCOs truly are the backbone of the Marine Corps and they were our center of gravity in the Iraq and Afghan campaigns. They did these things with skill and daring, and their performance in this war shines brightly in the history of the Marine Corps. These squads, led by sergeants, corporals, and, at times, savvy lance corporals routinely engaged in firefights with enemy forces, located improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and weapons caches, were hit by IEDs, and evacuated wounded Marines. This was an era of distributed and decentralized operations in which infantry squads were the primary unit of action. As a young Marine, I spent my formative years in the counterinsurgency phase of the Iraq War. I know what they are capable of because I have seen it firsthand, time and again. I believe in our noncommissioned officers (NCOs).
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