As far as I am concerned, have noticed, during a long service in the British Army, what can be obtained from noncommissioned officers when they are given prec ise responsibi li ties at organizational level, a certain freedom of action , much authority ... and much work, all of t his keeping them well under control wit h the necessary fair play. Afterwards, the officer may well go and stroke the horses with white gloves without diminish ing either his own prestige or t hat of the non-commissioned offi cer. However, if t he system must work, a sort of "line of technical dependence" is necessary. This line, starting from the mythi cal firs t sergeant of a reg iment goes down to the platoon leader, a chain wh ich, for instance, exi sts in the American army too. Moreover, if we consider the German organization , we note on ly one jun ior officer in t he company, who is also the "executive"; the remain ing platoons are headed by noncommissioned officers with at least 4 years of service, chosen among th e most rel iable men of equal rank. I have often taken these models for an example; without difficu lty in Cavalry, but also in Viterbo, I positively struck t he imagi nation of cadets w ho, instead of identifying the noncomm iss ioned officer with the writing desk, the depot or maybe the unskilled work, saw him engaged in personnel management and instruction, in external activities with the same knapsack of the cadets, and they looked with tim id admiration at the School Warrant Officer dri ll ing the battalions under the attentive look of the officers. I have certain ly not brought forth particu larly original ideas, indeed I am convinced that in the future a good nop.commissioned officer w ill have the same tasks he has always had in every efficient army, but times c hange and he must be trained to act in a human,
operational and technical environment wh ich becomes gradually more complicated , bearing well in mind that the so-called "good executors " will be dead we ig ht in the year 2000 even more than they are today and therefore by putting aside, w ithout ill-advised mercy, those who are unfit, we w ill avoid leaving a bad heritage to those who w ill come after us. The formation of a good NCO is a long and difficu lt process, but it is certainly not a labour of Sisyphus as some say is the case with the training of conscripts. The formation of the noncomm issioned officer gives the pleasant illusion of being able to be present in the Army and its Corps for decades after having taken off the honoured uniform, but above all it gives the certainty of giving an import ant contributi on to its efficiency because a good army has never existed w ithout a good non-commissioned officer corps. Carlo Alfonso Giannatiempo
Colonel Carlo Alfonso Giannatiempo, a Cava lry officer on General Staff duty, attended the "Nunziatella" Military School, the Military Academy, the Ranger Course and the War College. He was platoon leader and troop commander in the " Nizza", "Piemonte" and "Lancieri di Novara" squadrons, and commanded the " Genova Cavalleria" squadron as well as the Non-Commi ssioned Officer School. Co l. Giannatiemp o served with t he General Staff of the Military Command of Sicily, the Army General Staff and the Hqs. 6th Field Force of the British Army. He has also been Section Chief at the office of the Secretary General of Defense, as well as ITALCON Chief of Staff. At present, Col. Giannatiempo is the Chief of the I Branch of LANDSOU TH.
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