We hosted two great NCO-related blogger’s roundtables last week. The first featured NCO Net, a collaborative portal for NCOs hosted under the Battle Command Knowledge System. We were joined by a trio of great speakers on the topic of leadership development and collaborative tools – Col. Burnett, Sgt. Maj. (ret) Joe Pearson, and Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Colin Casper. For NCOs, more so even than others in the military, there is a great diversity in the breadth of assignments and a special requirement for well-developed leadership skills. It can be a daunting task, but having an online forum where there are no dumb questions is an incredibly valuable resource, said Pearson. Listen to the full audio from this roundtable here.
For our second roundtable of the day, we were joined by Sgt. Heyz Seeker, a Filipino Noncommissioned Officer whose father and stepfather both served in the Pacific theaters in World War II. Seeker never knew his real father, who died when he was two, but was inspired by stories of his war-time service, as well as his stepfather’s. Seeker re-joined the Army after a five year break in service. After 9/11 he reenlisted, and went on to win the Best Warrior Competition as well as being named the Soldier of the Year in 2007. No small feat. I’d like to think that my father would be proud, said Seeker. Download the roundtable audio here.
