noncom = 'enlisted person'

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 6:40 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:

> RE: corporals in the NCO club. IIRC, the Army was phasing out the rank of
> corporal c. late '60s. I was a drill corporal at NCO school; but otherwise,
> it seemed the only other corporals were NCOs (sergeants) that got busted
> down to E-4, but in consolation it was to corporal & not SP-4, and so could
> still go to the NCO club. To further confuse the ranks, the Army introduced
> lance corporal E-3 briefly, and fiddled with the chevrons & rockers.
> Basically, it was a royal snafu.
>

In my day - the late '50's - early '60's, corporals (E-4) - two chevrons on
each sleeve - were definitely NCO's (E-4 through E-9). There was an
anecdote about "seeing a corporal herding 200 head of EM," wherein "EM" was
understood to include recruits (E-1), privates (E-2), both "slick-sleeves"
- no chevrons -and privates first class, who wore "mosquito-wings" - a
single chevron on each sleeve.

We specialists (E-4 through E-9) received the pay and the privileges of
NCO's of the relevant grade, but lacked the authority. In fact, in combat
units in which specialists were as rare as NCO's, specialists *did* have
the authority of NCO's and were treated as such.

However, I was in a unit made up of "linguists" in the Army Security
Agency." Such units consisted entirely of a couple of hundred specialists 4
and 5, so we cleaned the latrine, stood guard, worked the burn-bag detail,
and did all of the other stuff that "true" EM did.

In West Berlin, specs 4 and 5 - those of us in the Security Agency, anyway
- had a choice of the NCO club - a dull, dreary, sad place with a
half-dozen or so lifers drowning their PTSD in alcohol - or the EM club, a
swinging scene non-distinct from the better class of stateside nightclub.
It even had a real name - the Stork Club.

Coming home, the troopship had to be GI'ed - cleaned - from stem to stern
on a daily basis. Specialists had too much pswaydo-rank to be put onto a
work-detail, but not enough real rank to be put in charge of such a detail.
Large, but not in charge.

The specialists got to hang out with the higher-ranking NCO's, while the
other EM and the few corporals worked their asses off.

Very seldom does a situation in the military come to what is known as
"gether."

Anyway, IMO, an EM is not at all the same as an NCO.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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