Sometimes, the simple solutions, such as the one above, just don't work. They leave out critical actions, responsibilities, and other things.
If you look at the military forces around the world, the level of their success ranges from nearly zero to overwhelmingly successful. Usually, the level of success is ascribed to how much money is available to support the particular force in question. There's a certain amount of truth to this, but it's only a part of the equation. Without money, you can't enlist and pay troops, you can't buy equipment or send them for training. Money is important but it's only a means to an end.
Training troops requires constant planning, executing, evaluating and re planning to achieve a level of training that will allow them to function in combat when they go to it. That level of training is defined by standards set by the leadership. The standards are enforced by NCOs.
The nuts and bolts of training require several classes of soldiers. The officer class is responsible for doing broad planning and for executing training that coordinates units together, whatever their size. Enlisted men receive the bulk of individual training and make up the small units that are the building blocks of larger units. The NCO corps is in between the other two groups. They provide the individual and small unit training on a day to day basis.
Since officers are focused on unit training and larger scale planning, they don't have the time to devote to actually training troops, too; unless the officer corps is so large that it becomes unwieldy. When someone (officers) develops a plan that will result in friendly casualties, it's bad for morale if the troops are too familiar with the planner's weaknesses. Individual training of troops requires that the trainer be in constant, close proximity to the trainees and this allows the troops to learn many of the weaknesses of the trainer. NCOs bridge the gap here. They stay close enough to the troops being trained that standards can be maintained. Dangerous plans come from up higher, from people that are trusted because you're supposed to trust them.
NCOs become the reason that troops function at whatever level, good or bad. A good NCO corps upholds standards and inspires troops to give their very best. They train, motivate, lead and win.
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