A Legacy of Writing

Fostering writing by sergeants major

The United States Army's Sergeants Major Academy has graduated 27,206 students in its prestigious 22-year history. Two of those graduates later became the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Graduates of the Sergeants Major Academy have collectively accumulated over 500,000 years of leadership experience. But what happens to all that knowledge and experience when a sergeant major retires? The answer might surprise you.

Preserving and disseminating the knowledge accumulated by our senior noncommissioned officers will help sustain the Army’s readiness. Noncommissioned officers bridge the gap between high-level directives and tactical execution. Capturing in writing how the Army’s noncommissioned officers bridge this gap is important to refining techniques and doctrine. The Army should foster writing among the noncommissioned officer corps and develop a modernized publication system that supports and disseminates their writing.

Generational knowledge transfer

The United States Army's Noncommissioned Officer Corps has a proud heritage that dates to its origins in 1775. Sergeants major have played a pivotal role in the annals of military history, imparting battlefield insights to succeeding generations and fostering a culture of learning and development. And the most permanent way to impart wisdom is through writing. An ancient form of communication, writing has historically served as the primary tool for transferring knowledge between generations.

The United States Army has a storied history of writing beginning with the "Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States" written by Friedrich von Steuben in 1779. Moreover, though the United States Army now has over 1,000 official publications, many of the concepts and terms from Friedrich von Steuben's original work are still present and relevant in our current techniques, tactics, and practices. While officers like Friedrich von Steuben write frequently, publication by our noncommissioned officers is less common, though they possess decades of valuable experience.  

Today, when one searches the military archives to learn from the knowledge and experience of previous sergeants major, the results are disappointing. While the Sergeants Major Academy library holds select sergeant major monographs, the Army’s noncommissioned  officers are neither told that these papers exist nor taught where to find them. Better than hiding away these papers, the United States Army has the technology, knowledge, and experience to make the valuable lessons learned from our sergeants major accessible.

A call for action

Throughout a student's time at the Sergeants Major Academy, a Master Sergeant will write at least ten papers, but few take the next step and publish them. Students at the Sergeants Major Academy will write on topics ranging from ethics, to combat operations, to workforce management, and more. As a student of Class 74 with a motto of "Live the Legacy," my inability to learn from the experiences of thousands of sergeants major who have paved the way for me seems hypocritical. This article is an open challenge to the hundreds of classmates who walk the prestigious grounds of the United States Army's Sergeants Major Academy. Heed the Sergeant Major of the Army and publish your work!  

But the Army also has work to do. Why is it so hard to publish in the military? The United States Army has the technology to streamline the publishing process and promote the work to thousands of readers. Whether a general officer in the Pentagon with the authority and influence on the resources to establish a centralized leadership writing repository or a newly promoted corporal in the motor pool with the credibility and trust to promote written articles throughout his unit, this is an open challenge: support military writing.

Master Sergeant Noel DeJesus is a student at the United States Army’s Sergeants Major Academy, Class 74. He is a native of the Bronx, New York and holds a Master of Arts in Administrative Leadership from the University of Oklahoma.