Author Explores Controversial Vietnam-Era Program Created to Quickly Train NCOs

NCO School: How the Vietnam-Era NCO Candidate Course Shaped the Modern Army. Daniel K. Elder. University of North Georgia Press (An AUSA Title). 276 pages. $24.99

By Sgt. Maj. Noel DeJesus

The history of the Army’s noncommissioned officer corps is full of tradition, pride and steady evolution. In NCO School: How the Vietnam-Era NCO Candidate Course Shaped the Modern Army, Daniel Elder explores one of the most controversial yet significant periods in that evolution. His book focuses on the little-known story of the NCO Candidate Course, or NCOCC, created during the Vietnam War to address a critical shortage of small-unit leaders.

Faced with mounting casualties and the growing demands of a complex, unconventional war, the Army was running out of sergeants. The traditional method of promoting NCOs through time, experience and unit recommendation could not keep pace with the operational needs in Vietnam. In response, Army leaders introduced a bold and unconventional solution: NCO School, modeled after the successful Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In just a few months, thousands of draftees and volunteers were selected, trained and promoted to sergeant, earning them the nickname “Shake and Bake Sergeants.” That label stuck, often carrying a negative tone. Critics questioned the leadership abilities of these fast-tracked NCOs, while others quietly acknowledged the program filled a necessary gap. Elder brings balance to the debate by combining historical research with firsthand accounts from graduates and Army leaders of the time.

What makes NCO School particularly valuable to today’s Army is its relevance to how the service continues to develop and manage NCOs. Elder reminds readers that the challenge of producing capable, confident and prepared small-unit leaders always has been a priority for the Army. The NCOCC may have been born in crisis, but it laid the foundation for what became a globally respected model of enlisted professional development.

Throughout the book, Elder goes beyond the surface of the NCOCC program. He provides historical context, tracing how the role of the sergeant evolved over centuries and how the Army struggled to create formal education pathways for enlisted leaders. His research covers not just the course, but the lasting aftereffects on Army culture, professional military education and leadership selection.

Importantly, Elder does not dismiss the challenges NCOCC graduates faced. Their experiences reflect the tension between tradition and innovation the Army still navigates today. His work invites Army leaders to reflect on how the service balances experience with potential, how it builds trust in new leaders and how the institution adapts to changing operational requirements.

NCO School is more than a history book. It is a reminder that leadership development in the Army is never static.

For soldiers, NCOs and officers alike, this book offers insight into how the Army overcame one of its toughest personnel challenges and how those lessons continue to shape the NCO corps. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone invested in the future of Army leadership.

Sgt. Maj. Noel DeJesus is a Sergeants Major Academy fellow at Fort Bliss, Texas. He is a 2024 graduate of the academy and a fellow with the LTG (Ret.) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program. He received a Master of Arts in administrative leadership in 2017 from the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of the Pocket Sized Leadership book collection.

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WWII Fight for the Philippines Touched Land, Sea and Air

Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines. Peter R. Mansoor. Cambridge University Press. 600 pages. $34.95

By Christopher Kolakowski

Among the battlegrounds in the Pacific War, the Philippines stands out for the duration and scope of its experiences. Fighting occurred somewhere on the archipelago’s approximately 7,600 islands every day from Dec. 8, 1941, to Aug. 15, 1945. The fall of Bataan and Corregidor in the spring of 1942 was the largest surrender in American military history.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who escaped captivity by direct presidential order, devoted the rest of the war to avenging that defeat. He did so, returning to Leyte in October 1944 and the rest of the islands in 1945. Along the way, the U.S. Army and Navy fought some of the largest battles of the Pacific War and American history. The effects of these events remain visible in Asia today. 

Peter Mansoor, who has written several books on warfare and is a noted soldier-scholar, takes up this story as the subject for his latest work, Redemption: MacArthur and the Campaign for the Philippines. He is a diligent researcher, and a glance at his bibliography and acknowledgements demonstrates the results of his efforts. He weaves in many sources as he covers all aspects of the fighting on land, sea and air. Strong quotations and vignettes help sharpen his narrative, while he offers insightful analysis at appropriate places. 

A book with a scope this large will concern more than just land fighting. Mansoor recognizes the importance of political, personal and interservice factors and discusses them expertly. His depictions of the major personalities on both sides are vivid and fair. He also includes an illuminating chapter on the Battle of Leyte Gulf in late 1944, giving the U.S. Navy its credit there and elsewhere. His discussion of the guerrilla movement (the largest in Asia and the largest anti-Axis resistance in the world except for the Polish Home Army) is insightful in the extreme, and he gives the guerrillas due credit for their role in the liberation. Lastly, Mansoor explores how Filipino collaborators were treated after the war, with impacts on Philippine politics up to today.

The book’s one limitation is its coverage of the 1941–1942 campaigns, which is a relatively short 50 pages. Even in those pages, the detail, including soldier quotes, is not as full as in the sections covering the 1944–1945 campaigns. The fall of Bataan and Corregidor set the stage for everything else in the book and provided motivation for the return and how it was conducted. A fuller explanation of that opening phase would have set a better context for later chapters. That said, this limitation does not detract from the book’s overall usefulness as an overview of the many facets of World War II in the Philippines.

This book is highly recommended for all audiences, especially those wanting an easily digestible history of this complex period.

Christopher Kolakowski, former director of The General Douglas MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, works as a historian in Madison, Wisconsin. He is the author of several books on the American Civil War and Asiatic-Pacific Theater of World War II and editor of Tenth Army Commander: The Writings of Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., 1944–45.

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The Human Side of Conflict

Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain. Nicholas Wright. St. Martin’s Press. 400 pages. $32

By Maj. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr., U.S. Army retired

As an internationally renowned clinical neurologist and research neuroscientist, Nicholas Wright has the demonstrated expertise to write authoritatively about the brain and its functions. Additionally, Wright has experience working within both the U.S. and U.K. governments, most notably, for the purposes of this review, with the Joint Staff, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and U.S. Strategic Command. His social science-themed book, Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain, leverages his bona fides and prowess to show how the brain’s “wiring” influences reflexive human responses, thinking, decision-making and actions. His historical and current wartime examples of seemingly predictable behavior under this paradigm would be of great interest for military strategists and history buffs alike.

While not so simple a topic to digest, it is a compelling read, one that walks the “student” through the anatomical parts of the brain, starting with the most primitive, automatic portions that are shared among many organisms, through the highly developed segments that distinguish humans from every other animal. Essentially, it provides a new perspective for examining war from within the human domain.

Along with cursory anatomy lessons, which will not overwhelm nonmedical readers, Wright explains associated behaviors linked to different parts of the brain. Ultimately—and what certainly will engage military leaders—Wright effectively enlists historical and near-contemporaneous military references to highlight his points on predictable brain behavior. He describes impactful decision-making by historical world leaders such as German leader Adolf Hitler, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President and former Army Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China Mao Zedong, as well as highlighting President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. His vignettes of both world wars, as well as the current Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, aptly reflect the book’s subtitle, namely, how the brain shapes war and war shapes the brain.

As one might imagine, there are vital and critical functions based on different brain centers, from essential life functions (like heartbeat, breathing and swallowing) to means of surviving and thriving in uncertain environments (such as vital senses and collaboration) to thinking and self-reflection. These latter functions differentiate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. They also provide hope for the future, in that these human actions, though predictably reflexive, are not hardwired and instinctive. Experience generates predictability, training extends a sense of consistency among individuals and teaching accumulates expectations between generations. Taken together, the author remains optimistic for current and future democracies. Even though the risk of war is unrelenting, human behavior is not predetermined by nature.

Whereas military theorists Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz eloquently describe the art of warfare, which has been studied by military practitioners since the advent of war, consider this a book describing the underlying anatomy and physiology behind how and why individuals act and behave the way they do.

Herein lies the key to this book: The brain has an exquisite capacity for perception and reaction. It predicts models of the external environment based on expectations, then responds based on whether predictions are met. These responses, whether immediately reflexive or deliberately thought-out, also are predictable. Understanding these concepts is foundational to optimal military leadership at tactical, operational and strategic levels. For this reason, this book is a must-read to enhance an understanding of war within the human domain.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Caravalho Jr., M.D., U.S. Army retired, is a retired cardiologist. His final military assignment was as Joint Staff surgeon for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon. Before that, he was deputy U.S. Army surgeon general. Currently, he leads the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

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Tale of Auschwitz Survivor, Soldier Saviors a Page-Turner

The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood. Nina Willner. Dutton. 384 pages. $35

By Alex Kershaw

It has been a theme of several best-selling World War II books to focus narratives on characters whose fates collide. Adam Makos has done this superbly, as have others. Now comes Nina Willner’s The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary World War II Story of Survival, Faith, and Brotherhood. It’s a clever title that made me think of the smash hit The Boys in the Boat, another story that provokes nostalgia for a mythic age when everyone loved their country, especially the underdogs, the bottom tier, the resilient survivors of the Depression, the “Greatest Generation.”

I hold my hand up and confess: Yes, I, too, have benefited from this surprisingly long-lasting sentimentalism. I’ve written 10 books stirring it, reveling in it. And I have no shame. With every day that opens and closes, I thank God for the men and women who defeated evil in World War II. Yes, it was that black and white. The forces of imperfect goodness defeating the forces of near-perfect evil, to paraphrase a French diplomat talking years ago to American veterans.

Willner’s thorough and engaging book traces the journeys of her father, Eddie Willner, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, and Elmer Hovland, a company commander in the U.S. 3rd Armored Division’s 32nd Armored Regiment, the fabled unit that rolled across Europe with elan and high casualties.

“It was a simple time when decency mattered,” writes Willner of the era that spawned the warriors who saved her father, and without whom she might not have been born.

Such quotes always leave me feeling uncomfortable. Fine writing, like wine, means you show (or taste) not tell, not rely on the sommelier’s wordy exhortations. Thankfully, Willner does a lot of showing, as well as telling. 

Vivid Story

Her father’s story is moving, of course, and a fine tribute from a good daughter. And the epic of the 3rd Armored Division is vividly retold, with a fresh, intimate take that focuses on the “boys” in Hovland’s company. Indeed, it is a well-researched follow-up to Willner’s rightfully popular Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall. A former Army intelligence officer, Willner has a crisp, engaging style. She knows how to keep you turning the pages. 

The 3rd Armored Division was the subject of Makos’ 2019 book, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II, notable for long and thrilling combat sequences. Willner’s account is not as bloody, not as Hollywood, but more tender and just as fine a tribute to a great, superbly led unit of gritty, at times incredibly courageous, tankers and attached infantry and artillery. It was led by Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose, a Jewish American tragically killed close to the end of the war. 

The 3rd Armored Division fought from June 1944, landing after D-Day on Omaha Beach, slugging it out in the Ardennes, famously blasting through Cologne and ending the war at Dessau, within a few days of easy rolling to Berlin. 

Soldiers in Arms

These combatants were not boys. They quickly became men. They did not come from a simpler, halcyon age, but an America of extreme unemployment and poverty, where antisemitism was pretty much universal in the upper echelons.

They fought and prevailed, and their love of country was rarely as powerful a motivator as the love they felt for the adults in uniform beside them: those men of the Allied spearhead who liberated Germans from their darkest demons—from themselves.

Alex Kershaw is the bestselling author of Against All Odds and, more recently, Patton’s Prayer. He is the resident historian for Friends of the National World War II Memorial and lives in Washington, D.C.