Command Sergeant Major Steven Shepherd, NATO Headquarters Sarajevo’s senior enlisted leader, visited the Training and Doctrine Command in Travnik, BiH on March 22, 2018. TRADOC conducts basic, collective, and institutional training and develops doctrine for AFBiH.
"We are here to develop better relationships with the AFBiH non-commissioned officers and see how they are trained," said Blake Hampton, U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo Defense Multimedia Support Element team lead.
The Department of NCO Courses has four different trainings: Basic NCO Training, Advanced NCO Course, First Sergeant Course, and Staff Sergeant Course. The Basic NCO Training is for the duties of team leaders, crews, squad and section level leaders. The Advanced NCO Course trains leaders how to prepare, plan and execute tasks for the level of a platoon NCO. The Staff Sergeant Course is designed for NCOs to take over and performs staff sergeant duties at the battalion level and higher commands. NCOs who advance to the Sergeant Major level attend the Sergeant Major Course in the United States or Croatia.
Each NCO course can have sixty students at one time and there are up to eleven instructors at TRADOC.
"The NCOs, Sergeant Major and his team are doing phenomenal things out here," said Shepherd. "The NCOs are out here doing what soldiers want to do and that's train."