[dragoon500ly]

One of the greatest problems of the pre-War mobilization was leadership. The Army had its small pool of Regular officers, another small of Reserve officers (these were regulars who had resigned their commissions in order to get jobs that would allow them to support their families), ROTC cadets, and the graduating class from West Point. These were used to bring units up to strength.

One of the other problems was the miserable state of the NG units. Since these were state-controlled, their officers were riddled with over-age or political appointees. This resulted in a need to replace these officers as well. So West Point cut its classes from 4 years to 3 years and sending NCOs and promising EMs to OCS, turning out "90 Day Wonders" to fill in platoon leader slots, and, needless to say, promotions rained down like manna from heaven! One NCO, E-7, was promoted to 2LT, then to Captain, given a company, then was promoted to Major and made Operations Officer for his battalion, and all within the space of ten days! He wound up getting into a fight on post, was court-martialed, and reduced back to Captain, with the proviso that he would keep his officers rank, provided he transferred to a newly formed division (he finished the war as a Lieutenant Colonel commanding a infantry battalion).

But one of the critical impacts of this leadership shortfall, was the promotion of barely trained "NCOs". In many cases, there would be, perhaps one experienced NCO in a company. The British were certainly right in complaining that American leadership didn't know how to lead. It would take the campaigns in North Africa and New Guinea to start the brutal process of instilling discipline teaching the hard lessons of combat, each year saw a more careful selection for OCS/NCOs. But there were still problems that were never successfully resolved. And these same problems returned with a vengeance during the Korean War.