As early as 1957 the problem of training men to become NCO’s was under study. This was the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. As a result the U. S. Army HR office contracted with George Washington University to study ways to “expedite” developing a sergeant.  The lack of well-trained NCOs was therefore a recognized problem for long time before Vietnam.

As early as 1967 in Vietnam, the U.S. Army was running out of sergeants in Vietnam. Throughout military history, as least as far back as the Revolutionary War, sergeants have been considered the backbone of the Army and this serious shortage of sergeants meant a weakened fighting force. Each sergeant was responsible for a squad of seven to ten privates and three or four squads make up one platoon. This was the Army’s basic fighting structure.

            Further, in Vietnam many career sergeants served their tour of duty and then retired from the military. They did not remain in the army, because they didn’t want to risk being assigned a second tour and increase their possibility of getting killed. By the time they had returned from their tour, many disagreed with the way in which the war was being conducted by the military leaders and politicians. Part of the problem was that infantry sergeants, stationed in Vietnam, were required to serve twelve months in the field of combat, whereas officers were only required to serve six months in the field and their second six months of duty in the rear of the combat area, where there was less danger. A sergeant’s year-round exposure to combat, together with his traditional role as the leader and caretaker of his squad, made his job doubly dangerous. When any of these sergeants was wounded or killed, then, all too often, a young draftee would end up running the squad.  His experience and training were not extensive enough to take on this instant leadership role, especially when it included the directing of his friends to fight the enemy on their home turf.

As early as 1966, Sergeant Major of the Army William Wooldridge had had conversations with Lt. General Jonathan O. Seaman, Commanding General, II Field Force at Long Bein, Vietnam about the creation of a Noncommission Officer Candidate Course to address the growing need for infantry sergeants. Later when Wooldridge returned to the Pentagon he relayed the resulting conversation to his boss, Chief of Staff of the Army, General Harold K. Johnson. General Johnson then directed Lt. General Lincoln, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations to work with Wooldridge to draft a concept memorandum for approval and that resulted in approval for development of the course. General Johnson was therefore the senior officer that was directly responsible for the creation of the NCO Academy.

Sergeant Major Wooldridge had this to say about its justification. “ In Vietnam, with the twelve months in country tour limit and with sickness and injury and so forth, within nine months we had lost our noncommissioned officer structure in the fighting units. If you lose a squad leader, you didn't always get another. As the years went along and Vietnam became worse, the replacement problem became worse. A soldier would come to you as a very qualified squad leader, but the thing that worried you was how long would you have him. Would he be sick after ninety days? Would he get hurt after only two weeks? Certainly at the end of nine months, his focus then was on going home. He may begin to pull back from responsibility, didn’t like to go on helicopter assaults or sweeps anymore. Who did you have in country to replace that squad leader? You had to take someone you considered was the most eligible and many times a private in that squad, who was the next man and give him a position as squad leader. You couldn't promote him but if you went along with the next allocations that came down, you could. As a matter of fact, the allocations and promotions for the fighting units were excellent.

The point is when you had him, he still didnšt have the ability that you needed because he had no formal training as a squad leader. In those days, we were moving them right along rather rapidly. My idea was born out of discussions with General Seaman. Why don't we go to a training center and after the first four weeks or six weeks, why don't we select people who have some promise of being leaders and send them to an advanced course at the Infantry school at Fort Benning. We could talk to them and teach them about what it is to be a squad leader, the basics, and the squad leader qualifications. We would teach them how to lead or employ a squad, to know map, compass and small unit tactics and if they pass then lets promote them and ship them to Vietnam as an NCOs. That was roughly the concept. The result became what the GI referred to as Shake ’N Bake’s or instant NCOs.  I wasn't very popular for that recommendation but it was something that I thought deserved a shot. It was opposed all the way up and down the line. On the other hand, I hoped that some of the young men that went over there did make it and did become professional NCOs and hopefully the Army benefited from them. It turns out that they outlived the Shake’N Bake titles on the ground in Vietnam. “