If you have questions about leader development, Army schools or Structured Self-Development, be sure to tune in Thursday to a virtual town hall hosted by the senior enlisted soldier for Training and Doctrine Command.

Command Sgt. Maj. David Davenport will host the event, the second of its kind, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Eastern time at www.emc.army.mil/broadcast. The chat room, available on the same site, opens at 4 p.m.

Soldiers also can use the hashtag #TRADOCtownhall on social media to ask questions or follow the conversation.

Davenport will be joined by experts from the Combined Arms Center, the Sergeants Major Academy, the Institute for Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development and the Training Operations Management Activity.

The State of NCO Development 2 virtual town hall, hosted by Training and Doctrine Command is June 23. Bring your questions.

Photo Credit: Army

The panel will answer questions, live from soldiers online and via social media, about ongoing and new leader development initiatives, including the Master Leader Course, common core, Army University, the NCO Professional Development System, SSDs and joint professional military education.

"We want soldiers and noncommissioned officers to tune in because this is about the future," Davenport said in a statement. "We want the soldiers informed."

This upcoming town hall follows a highly successful event on March 3. Between 3,500 and 5,000 people in 18 countries tuned in to the live stream of the very first "State of NCO Development Town Hall." In addition, more than 3,000 people signed in to the live streaming chat box to engage with TRADOC experts, who answered questions from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia.

At the end of the night, the chat box had more than 1,213 questions and comments; TRADOC estimated that its experts were asked more than 500 questions about NCO development.

On social media, the event hashtag #talk2TRADOC reached 1 million Twitter accounts between March 2 and 4, and 131 people used the hashtag to create more than 300 tweets asking questions, making comments and promoting the event. Overall, organizers estimated they answered nearly 100 questions between Facebook and Twitter during the town hall.

Because of the success of the March 3 town hall, Davenport is hosting the upcoming event on Thursday and plans to do at least two more, one each quarter. He also will narrow the focus of each subsequent town hall so he can better answer soldier questions.

For Thursday's event, soldiers will be able to ask questions live and talk to experts online.

"They can actually engage and talk to [subject matter experts], get their questions clarified, and hear [directly] what we are working on rather than second-hand," Davenport said.

Davenport promised that the responses will not be scripted in an effort to provide genuine answers or advice to soldiers.

"I think that is how you build trust," he said.

About Michelle Tan

Michelle Tan is the editor of Army Times and Air Force Times. She has covered the military for Military Times since 2005, and has embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Haiti, Gabon and the Horn of Africa.

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