NCO Academy empowers Afghan leaders

Staff Sgt. Joshua Brandenburg/3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division

ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The high standards of U.S. leadership training have found their way to Afghanistan.

The Afghan National Army’s NCO academy, located on Forward Operating Base Eagle, Zabul Province, started more than two years ago as an attempt to keep the NCOs of 2nd Brigade, 205th Afghan National Army Corps in their ranks.

Command Sgt. Maj. John Wayne Troxell, command sergeant major of International Security Assistance Force Joint Command and I Corps, Joint Base Lewis McChord, recently called it “the absolute best enlisted leader training that I have seen in the almost seven months that I have been in Afghanistan.”

Before the academy at Forward Operating Base Eagle opened its doors, the Afghan NCOs attended the academy in Kabul.

After graduating, many of the NCOs were sent to other units throughout Afghanistan, draining the 2-205 ANA Brigade of trained NCOs.

That’s when 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment decided the best way to maintain control of the Afghan NCOs was to build an academy for the 2-205th ANA Brigade.

“That way the knowledge they were gaining, they could keep in the brigade and they could spread it amongst their soldiers,” said Sgt. 1st Class Sean Mulcahy, NCOIC of Security Force Advisor Team 8, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment.

At first, members of the Security Force Advisor Team 8 instructed each class and then moved on to Afghan-led classes with members of Team 8 supervising. Now members of Team 8 just monitor classes periodically or answer any questions that may arise from the academy’s instructors.

“They’re completely self-sufficient,” Mulcahy said. “They teach everything themselves.”

Now the academy is up and running at full speed, graduating more than a hundred non-commissioned officers a year and retaining them in 2nd Brigade, 205th Afghan National Army Corps.

The students learn various soldiers’ skills such as how to obtain a proper sight picture with their individual weapons, advanced marksmanship techniques, how to conduct patrols through villages, and how to conduct basic counter insurgency operations. They also learn how to interact with village elders. The NCOs then take what they have learned back to their units and train their soldiers.

The academy is doing so well, in fact, that command sergeants major from across the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command paid them a visit Jan. 14 to see firsthand how the academy is being run and why it has been so successful. The NCOs attending the academy demonstrated for the command sergeants major a search of a mock village and the tactics they use while clearing rooms.

“The empowerment of those NCOs was evident by the way that they interacted with the soldiers and the leadership of the brigade,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel G. Murphy, command sergeant major of Combined Task Force Arrowhead and the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.