The creation of the Office of the Sergeant Major of the Army in July 1966 represented a major milestone in the development of the United States Army. For the first time in history, an enlisted person assumed the role of a senior enlisted adviser...
Leon L. Van Autreve, the 4th Sergeant Major of the Army, was sworn in on July 1, 1973 and served until his term ended in June of 1975. He was born in Eeklo, Belgium, on January 29, 1920. He entered the Army in August 1941 from Delphos, Ohio. After...
Leon L. Van Autreve, the 4th Sergeants Major of the Army, held the position from July 1, 1973 through June 1975. He was born in Eeklo, Belgium, on January 29, 1920 and died March 14, 2002. Rejuvenation of NCO Corps was SMA Van Autreve's greatest...
Leon L. Van Autreve dedicated his military career to establishing and enforcing standards and improving the reputation of the Non Commissioned Officer Corp. From the battlefields of World War II to the jungles of Vietnam, Leon Van Autreve led...
The Noncommissioned Officers (NCO) priority is always to focus on how they can train their soldiers to win in combat. The coach, teach and mentor method of training is the preferred system used widely in the Army. As the SMA it is a duty and...
William O. Wooldridge was born on 12 August 1922, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. William was the eighth often children. At the age of five the family moved to Cross Cut, Texas where Wooldridge stated that life there was "hard but satisfying" (Elder,...
According to history and an article titled “A Short History of the NCO”, written by L.R. Arms, the noncommissioned officer or NCO position began in 1775 with the birth of the Continental Army. This was made possible by Freidrich von Steuben....
There have only been thirteen Sergeants Major of the Army to date to hold this most prestigious position and their contributions to the advancement of the NCO corps and enlisted soldiers are enormous. SMA Preston said, “We have the greatest Army...
This paper discusses NCOs in the American Army (1945-present), outlining various distinguished Sergeants Majors of the Army, and the roles of the Recruiter Noncommissioned Officer, DRILL SERGEANT, and the Noncommissioned Officer Education System...