CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait - "Treat me with respect, Sergeant...Do not break my spirit with your words, Sergeant."
These words reverberated throughout the zone one chapel July 16, 2016 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait during the last ever Noncommissioned Officer Induction Ceremony for the 10th Combat Support Hospital.
By this time next year, the 10th CSH will be realigned as the 10th Field Medical Hospital.
The new NCOs were from 10th CSH Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 335th Area Support Medical Company, 53rd Head and Neck Surgical Team, 85th Combat Stress Control and the 227th Preventive Medicine Detachment. A total of 27 junior NCOs were inducted during the ceremony.
The underlying theme throughout the ceremony was leadership.
"As a newly inducted NCO, you are the first line of defense for standards, discipline, teaching, coaching and investing in your team," said Command Sgt, Maj. Edward Bell, the top enlisted advisor at 1st Theater Sustainment Command and the ceremony's guest speaker. "You must possess the leader's attributes of character, presence, intellect, leads, develops and achieves."
Many of the induction ceremony traditions were on display including the singing of the National Anthem, the recital of the Soldier's creed and the Soldier's Request, a poem often recited at NCO inductions, to name a few.
Passing over the line of responsibility was one of the symbolic gestures in the ceremony where a junior NCO would walk under an arch to join the ranks of their fellow NCOs.
Soldiers and civilians from all portions of Arifjan attended the ceremony from lower enlisted personnel up to the 1st TSC commander, Maj. Gen. Paul Hurley.
"Watching this gives me hope," said Hurley. "They're going to lead the future of our Army. It makes me proud to stand here with them."
It is important to carry these traditions, said Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Baller, the 10th CSH command sergeant major.
"As we celebrate the NCO corps in this induction ceremony, it is important that we uphold the standards and traditions of the Army," said Baller.
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