I wish I had gotten more education / exposure to working with both NCOs and junior Enlisted. Looking back, it is something that is really best understood through experience, but I think I only was introduced to a few NCOs my whole time at West Point (and their job was to be in charge of me, less working with me). A really helpful experience that I had at BOLC was through a schoolhouse social event where BOLC and a Sr. NCO class also within the Soldier Support Institute linked up for a networking event. What I realized immediatley upon entering that event was that I didn’t even know the appropriate way to address an NCO. Is okay to call a Master Sergeant “sergeant” in conversation? How do you address a group of NCOs, either when entering or leaving a conversation? Blessedly, I was paired up with a classmate who was prior enlisted and walked right up to a NCO, stuck out her hand for a shake, and said, “Hey Sergeant Smith, I’m LT Smith here for BOLC. What course are you here for? What assignment did you come from / are you going to?”, and chatted about the AG Corps. My peer’s background as an NCO really shined through there because she just let me soak up each introduction like a sponge. Once I got past that challenge of introductions, I then entered the mindset that NCOs and Officers work in concert with lanes and intersections and then I could focus on the relationship, the development, the work production.

I’d say all this goes for Warrant Officers as well. I had no idea WOs even existed until after BOLC, so that was another rank dynamic that I had to learn that I wasn’t exposed to at West Point.