Drill Sergeants Return to AIT

9 May 2017, Army News — A decade after taking drill sergeants out of Advanced
Individual Training and replacing them with AIT platoon sergeants, the Army is
planning on bringing the drill sergeants back.

Though the idea has been floated in the past, during TRADOC’s fourth State of
NCO Professional Development Town Hall, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Gragg,
the command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training
at Fort Eustis, Virginia, said the plans are now moving forward. Drill sergeants
could be back in AIT as soon as October 2019.

“The goal is to get [drill sergeants] back,” Gragg said. “We know the force would
like them there. We know there is a deficiency in Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills.
We know there is a decrease in the level of discipline.”

The announcement of a timeline for drill sergeants’ return to AIT came after
Master Sgt. Michael Lavigne, the town hall moderator, asked Gragg why there is
no AIT platoon sergeant badge like there is for drill sergeants. The lack of a
device has been one of the problems in getting NCOs to serve as AIT platoon
sergeants.

“We have inquired about [an AIT platoon sergeant badge] on several occasions,
asking what can we do to incentivize the AIT platoon sergeant program,” Gragg
said. “We have a challenge in meeting and maintaining AIT platoon sergeants in
the force with the numbers that we need. We are habitually not at that 100
percent mark that we’d like to be. Though we are mandated to man to that level,
we’re not there. Often it’s because individuals have no desire to come out there
and do it because there is nothing in it for them. The drill sergeant gets a badge
and some special pay. The instructor can earn a badge. I can’t do anything for my
AIT platoon sergeants. In the process of understanding that, that’s why we’re
going to go back to making them all drill sergeants.”

One of the few incentives for serving as an AIT platoon sergeant is that it is a
broadening assignment that helps noncommissioned officers get promoted.
Between 50 percent and 70 percent of AIT platoon sergeants get selected for
promotion. But even that incentive comes with caveats.

“The only challenge that I do have with them is that, in comparison to their drill
sergeant brethren, they may not get promoted in the same fiscal year because of
the simple fact that when that drill sergeant takes their DA photo, they have
something in their photo that says they are doing that special duty,” Gragg said.
“My AIT platoon sergeants, when they take their photo, they don’t have anything
on there. If there’s nothing in that photo that says they are performing that duty
— if they don’t have an evaluation on the board file by that time, they won’t see it
— so the board won’t necessarily be able to give them credit for that duty. That
following year, when they have an evaluation on file, they get picked up.”

In response to a comment in the town hall online discussion board, Sgt. Maj.
Brian Lindsey of the Institute for Noncommissioned Officer Professional

Development at Fort Eustis, Virginia, disputed the idea that AIT platoon
sergeants’ job was “babysitting Soldiers.”

“The impact of the AIT platoon sergeant at that level is crucial to when that soldier
leaves there,” Lindsey said. “When I’m in AIT, I’m learning my job. It’s crucial that
a Soldier leaves there with confidence and is competent when he gets to his first
unit of assignment. So, you’re not a babysitter. You should be a great coach,
teacher and mentor to ensure when a Soldier gets there, he is a force multiplier
for that organization.”

Any leadership failures by AIT platoon sergeants is solely the fault of a flawed
system that didn’t give them what they needed to succeed, Gragg said. The move
to return drill sergeants to AIT should improve that system.

“For my AIT platoon sergeant brethren out there who would think this is a slap on
them, it is not,” Gragg said. “Because those same individuals who are AIT platoon
sergeants will be the same exact individuals who will be the drill sergeants. What
we’re trying to do is give them more tools to be successful.”

Sometimes, those tools are something as simple as the distinctive drill sergeant
hat.

“Right now, I can’t give [AIT platoon sergeants] the infrastructure to be
successful,” Gragg said. “They are out there at a 1-to-40 ratio by regulation, but
actually they’re out there at a 1-to-120 ratio sometimes in their organizations. How
does an individual control a crowd of 120 when in a uniform that looks just like
theirs? If you are not vertically gifted and taller than everybody, then they can’t
see you. If they can’t see you, those individuals don’t self-discipline unless they
hear you, so your sphere of influence is 3 meters around you, eye-to-eye. But if I
put distinctive headgear on you, that sphere of influence is increased to 30
meters or so. People around you start self-policing; therefore, those self-policing
habits will hopefully become lifelong habits and increase the discipline inside the
force as we go along.”

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