When was the NCO creed written?
The Creed has existed in different versions for a number of
years. Long into their careers, sergeants remember reciting the NCO
Creed during their induction into the NCO Corps. Nearly every NCO's
office or home has a copy hanging on a wall. Some have intricate
etchings in metal on a wooden plaque, or printed in fine
calligraphy. But a quick glance at any copy of the NCO Creed and
you will see no author's name at the bottom. The origin of the NCO
Creed is a story of its own. In 1973, the Army (and the
noncommissioned officer corps) was in turmoil. Of the post-Vietnam
developments in American military policy, the most influential in
shaping the Army was the advent of the Modern Volunteer Army. With
the inception of the Noncommissioned Officer Candidate Course, many
young sergeants were not the skilled trainers of the past and were
only trained to perform a specific job; squad leaders in Vietnam.
The noncommissioned officer system was under development and the
army was rewriting its Field Manual 22-100, Leadership, to set a
road map for leaders to follow. Of those working on the challenges
at hand, one of the only NCO-pure instructional departments at the
U.S Army Infantry School (USAIS) at Fort Benning, Georgia, GA was
the NCO Subcommittee of the Command and Leadership Committee in the
Leadership Department. Besides training soldiers at the
Noncommissioned Officers Academy, these NCOs also developed
instructional material and worked as part of the team developing
model leadership programs of instruction. During one brainstorming
session, SFC Earle Brigham recalls writing three letters on a plain
white sheet of paper... N-C-O. From those three letters they began
to build the NCO Creed. The idea behind developing a creed was to
give noncommissioned officers a "yardstick by which to measure
themselves." When it was ultimately approved, the NCO Creed was
printed on the inside cover of the special texts issued to students
attending the NCO courses at Fort Benning, beginning in 1974.
Though the NCO Creed was submitted higher for approval and
distribution Army-wide, it was not formalized by an official army
publication until 11 years later. Though it has been rewritten in
different ways, the NCO Creed still begins its paragraphs with
those three letters: N-C-O. It continues to guide and reinforce the
values of each new generation of noncommissioned officers.