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GRAFENWOEHR, Germany — The 7th Army Non-commissioned Officer Academy, part of the Joint Multinational Training Command, located in Grafenwoehr Germany is the oldest and largest NCO Academy in the U.S. Army. The academy has been developing leaders for U.S. Army, Europe and multinational soldiers for more than 60 years.
Since 2003, the JMTC’s NCOA has graduated more than 639 soldiers from the Academy’s highly successful Warrior Leader Course.
U.S. and multinational soldiers from across Europe, and even NCOs from countries as far as South Korea, have sent soldiers to develop their NCO corps capability at the NCOA, but nations such as Poland and Romania have instituted their own Academies in their home countries, using the NCOA as a model institution.
The Warrior Leader is the only course in the U.S. Army that offers the unique opportunity for U.S. soldiers and their allies to participate in identical instruction and training in order to become non-commissioned officers.
The NCOA is an institution that thrives on the challenges and consequent improvements that each class of graduating students requires in their struggle to be the best NCO’s they can be, as individuals and as a group.
“We have great opportunities to train multinational soldiers,” said Sgt. 1st Class Chasity Bingley, the Chief of Training for the 7th Army NCO Academy. “We feel very fortunate that our NCO academy is so frequently chosen to be the model when visiting foreign soldiers return to their home countries to develop their own NCO academies.” she said. “Next month, we will have 90 Kosovo soldiers coming to the Academy, which will allow us to set the foundation for their NCO development.”
U.S. soldiers are also able to gain different experiences and take on different perspectives from the visiting multinational soldiers. From day-one of the Warrior Leader Course, multinational soldiers are split up and placed within the ranks of the U.S. soldiers, which in turn motivates them to learn to work and adapt together.
“We will always have multinational partners on the battlefield, and by multinational soldiers training with us side-by-side, we are already building that partnership,” said Bingley. They may not remember each other personally, but they will be able to identify the uniform and will be reminded of the partnership that was built during their time spent at the Academy.” she said.
The curriculum at the Warrior Leader Course is constantly evolving. It ensures that soldiers graduate with the most up-to-date knowledge on how to lead and react on the battlefield.
Experienced cadres of small group instructors teaches USAREUR and multinational soldiers how to think during the intensive Warrior Leader Course.
Students graduate the course with the skills and the understanding to be non-commissioned officers. “We take the soldiers that just returned from combat and incorporate their feedback and knowledge into our curriculum,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jesus Serrano, a Senior Small Group Instructor at the 7th Army NCO Academy. One of our main goals is to train soldiers to be creative and adaptive thinkers,” he said.
There have been some extremely smart international students who have come through the Academy, said Serrano. The instructors and U.S. soldiers are very receptive to learning from them as well, he said.
We’ve learned to open our arms and embrace them as if they’re our own American soldiers,” said Serrano. We have to be able to fight tomorrow’s wars together, and we are training to do that here at JMTC’s NCO Academy, he said.
| Date Taken: | 05.17.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 06.18.2012 14:14 |
| Story ID: | 90195 |
| Location: | GRAFENWOEHR, DE |
| Web Views: | 88 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, JMTC Warrior Leader Course forges international Soldier partnerships, by SSG Jess Williams, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
