NCO Corner Aims To Be ‘Site of Sites’
By Jonathan (Jay) Koester
NCO Journal
August 13, 2013
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Have you found yourself searching multiple online sites to find information on leader development and unit training management? If you have, the NCO Corner — a website on the Army Training Network — will reduce your time searching the Web and will make your job easier. What’s more, the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center-Training recently made numerous improvements to the NCO Corner to make it the “site of sites” for information about leader development and unit training management.
When Sgt. Maj. Don Rose, sergeant major for Combined Arms Center-Training at the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., asked Soldiers and noncommissioned officers where they go online to find information on leader development and training information products, he received a wide range of responses on sites that are available for use. The problem with many of these sites is much of the information is either outdated or not managed by the Army. When he asked if they had heard of the ATN or NCO Corner, most said no.
Though the NCO Corner is not new — in fact it’s been part of the Army Training Network for several years now — the relaunched site is designed to be more useful than in the past by providing a variety of products and links to assist NCOs in the field with training Soldiers.
“Command Sgt. Maj. Rory Malloy [commandant of the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss, Texas] had three groups at USASMA do a staff study on the NCO Corner to determine whether we needed to keep it and, if so, what we could do to make it better,” Rose said. “So I went down to USASMA and listened to our future sergeants major and discussed what they thought would be the way ahead and how NCO Corner could help them. Based on their input and input from the Institute for Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development, we got started in designing the new NCO Corner.”
NCOs can find many training guides on the site that can help them train their Soldiers, Rose said.
“Marksmanship training is on there, Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills, the mandatory training requirements and pre-deployment tasks are on there,” Rose said. “With many of the subjects we have provided videos. So really, you can go on ATN or the NCO Corner and just download these products and get at training our Soldiers.”
One important facet of keeping NCO Corner a useful and vibrant site into the future is contributions from NCOs, Rose said. There is a feedback link on the site for noncommissioned officers to send in stories about what is going well in their units.
“We’re looking for best practices. We would love for you to share your (standard operating procedures) with us,” Rose said. “We’re are also asking for feedback on the NCO Corner itself. It’s the NCO Corner; it’s for the NCOs out there. We didn’t call it CAC-T Corner — it’s NCO Corner — so I really want input from the field. We would love to showcase your SOPs and best practices, and share them with rest of the Army.”
The site should help NCOs provide a more doctrinal way of training their Soldiers than some of the improvised training that NCOs were forced to use during more than 10 years of continuous conflict, said Lynn Rolf III, a military analyst at Fort Leavenworth.
“Some NCOs may not understand that this is the way we should be doing training,” Rolf said. “But go on this site, and NCOs will be surprised by how easy it is to pull training material. I think that’s the big thing.”
What it comes down to is that the newly relaunched NCO Corner is an integral part of NCO leader development, said Command Sgt. Maj. Joe Parson, command sergeant major for Combined Arms Center-Leader Development and Education at CAC.
“NCO Corner is both complementary and fundamental to our Army’s leader development strategy,” Parson said on a video about the site. “In my view, two of the most notable portions of NCO Corner are the Army Profession and leader development tools. … As we develop this site, you will have access to a rich repository of information about customs, courtesies and traditions to help you further steward our profession. The leader development tools compile doctrinal references, materials and sites of special interest to NCOs.”
Command Sgt. Maj. Christopher Greca, command sergeant major of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., spoke on the video about the need for NCOs to dedicate themselves to training Soldiers.
“Army Doctrinal Publication 7-0 charges noncommissioned officers with training individuals, crews, and small teams,” Greca said. “NCO leaders, this is an important charge. It deals with preparing your Soldiers each and every day for the rigors of combat. You only can do this if you understand your roles in regards to unit training management. NCO Corner was developed exactly for this reason. I encourage all NCO leaders to get on this site, to look it over, to use it. I promise you it will make a difference in your squads, teams and platoons.”
Finding NCO Corner
- NCO Corner links to the Army Training Help Desk, Army Career Tracker, Army Learning Management System and many other sites, including the NCO Journal. NCO Corner is part of the Army Training Network web site at: https://atn.army.mil.
- The Training Management Directorate, a subordinate organization of CAC-T, oversees the NCO Corner web site at: https://atn.army.mil/dsp_template.aspx?dpID=204.
- Both the Army Training Network and NCO Corner can be accessed by anyone with a Common Access Card.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hQ9x2iNVMo
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