Leadership of NCOs is essential in Air Force today Published July 9, 2008 By Senior Airman Daniel Burton 1st Combat Communications Squadron RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany -- The transition from the Airman tier to the non-commissioned officer tier can be one of the most challenging, yet exciting events for an Airman in today's Air Force. The leadership skills obtained through job experience and professional military education are critical to the success of our mission as an expeditionary and rapid global response force. To possess these skills is of the utmost importance as an NCO assigned to the 1st Combat Communications Squadron. Ensuring that your Airmen, as well as yourself, are physically, technically, mentally and spiritually ready to accomplish the mission at hand is one of the primary responsibilities of an NCO. While providing quality command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East, it is not uncommon to find a junior NCO in our unit tasked with the responsibility of deploying and setting up these systems in remote locations successfully on their own. Therefore, an NCO assigned to the 1st CBCS must have superior knowledge of their job in order to properly train and prepare an Airman for what they will experience while in a deployed location. Another critical asset provided by our unit's NCOs is the ability to make sound and quick decisions wherever our mission may take us. Taking control in emergency situations while fighting an enemy that engages us with unconventional warfare is one of the leadership skills that cannot be absorbed through training, yet a true test of character in what it means to be a non-commissioned officer in the 1st CBCS. President Dwight Eisenhower once said "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Without these certain leadership roles and characteristics of the 1st Combat Comm's NCOs both past and present, we would not have provided the leadership needed to endure our long and grueling deployments to some of the world's most austere locations. Without the dedication of these fine men and women the 1st Combat Comm would not be the most highly decorated non-flying unit in the Air Force, nor would any of our history making missions have been successfully accomplished.