It’s been said many times because it’s true: NCOs are the backbone of the Army.

But what do you do when there aren’t enough noncommissioned officers to support that skeleton? That’s the situation the Army faced in the mid-1960s, when the rapid buildup of troops in Vietnam created the need for an expanded NCO Corps.

Army leaders responded by developing the Noncommissioned Officer Candidate Course (or NCOCC), an intensive combination of classroom instruction and on-the-job training to prepare qualified enlisted men to lead squads and fire teams in combat. Attendees called it “NCO School.”

Daniel K. Elder, a retired command sergeant major and AUSA Senior Fellow, tells the story of this transformative yet overlooked chapter of Army history in NCO School: How the Vietnam-era NCO Candidate Course Shaped the Modern Army.

The AUSA Book Program sat down with CSM Elder to talk about NCO School.

AUSA: What inspired you to tell this story?

Elder: I was writing an article on the NCO Candidate Course for the newsletter of the Noncommissioned Officer Heritage and Education Center and had the chance to interview more than 30 graduates. They provided rich insights into the program that I had not heard before. I saw how critically influential it was for the creation of modern military education and for developing the corps of enlisted leaders.

AUSA: How did former governor Tom Ridge come to write the foreword?

AUSA: I learned through my research that Governor Ridge was a distinguished honor graduate of the program. During an AUSA annual meeting where Governor Ridge was receiving a prestigious award, I had a chance to give him a brief rundown of the project. He immediately liked the idea and supported the creation of the book.

AUSA: What are some misconceptions about the NCO Candidate Course?

AUSA: The biggest is that it was a failed program. The candidates, who were derided with nicknames like Instant NCO or Shake and Bake, were mostly well-educated draftees who served admirably. The program was graded where it mattered most, in the fields of battle in Vietnam. Their performance outweighed the alternative of untrained fire team and squad leaders leading men into battle.

AUSA: Why did the program end?

AUSA: NCOCC outlived its usefulness when the war in Vietnam ended and there was no longer a need for increased numbers of sergeants. The Army returned to a pre-war promotion system, but the curriculum that was developed for the course eventually morphed into the current NCO Professional Development System.

AUSA: What lessons from NCO School could the Army apply to today’s NCO training?

AUSA: Military PME is the key to the US Army NCO being the envy of all nations’ militaries, and key to that is the sequential and progressive training NCO institutions offer. If we were to lose the investments made to date, our Army would falter.

Please visit www.ausa.org/books to order NCO School and other titles in the AUSA Book Program. Use the promo code F25AUSA for select member discounts when purchasing directly through the publisher links.