Tom,

I think that we do need to strengthen our small units, but it also has the very strong potential to undermine the learning ability and authority of the NCOs in those units. Increasing the officer to NCO ratio just rings lots of bells with me, but that may be because I've been around the Air Force too long. What I see there, with heavy officer supervision, is a whole set of NCOs that may be good technicians, but have little in the way of leadership skill (on the average). Then when they hit E-7 or so they're expected to have leadership skills. I know I've mentioned this before on another thread, but I do worry about the effect shoving officers further down in the chain will have on our enlisted force.