Appointments: Noncom Sir

As an honor guard stood at saber-stiff attention and a 19-gun artillery salute boomed across the grassy Pentagon Mall, Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson last week swore in Sergeant Major William O. Wooldridge, 43, as the highest-ranking enlisted man in the 191-year history of the U.S. Army. Wooldridge, who became the first noncom to hold the new rank of Sergeant Major of the Army (the Marines have had a comparable corps-wide post since 1957) will serve in effect as the G.I.'s generalissimo. Acting as both the soldier's man-in-the-Pen-tagon and the Chief of Staff's trouble-shooter within the ranks,...