specifically right now/recently. what are the recruitment paths, who do they draw? has it changed much? how different is the officers’ disposition from the enlisted?
im reading about the Grande Armeé rn so naturally im curious about existing systems
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The following applies to the US Army as of 20+ years ago, but I doubt it has changed a whole lot since:
As far as I’m aware there are 3 main paths to becoming an officer: 1) West Point 2) ROTC and 3) OCS.
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West Pointers are by far the most numerous, and they typically come from wealthier communities, especially in the NE. West Point is considered to be a top notch school, and the majority of people who go there to be upper crust types who later spend the minimum amount of time they need to be in, and then get out and go work on Wall Street or whatever. Some stay in and make it a career, of course, and these represent most of those above the rank of Captain.
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ROTC - These are people who come from college ROTC programs and are more rare. I think they probably come from a range of different backgrounds.
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OCS - Officer Candidate School - These are basically NCOs who became officers through the OCS program. These are also rare I think, but officers who go this route generally get more respect from enlisted ranks for obvious reasons.
OCS can also be officer candidates who already have a degree. IIRC, the most common path for enlisted to officer (aside from warrant officers and limited duty) is to go through the academy.
West Pointers
so would this analysis apply to other academies, like the navy one? iirc westpoint is the one that needs congressional recommendation?
so OCS are selected from enlisted, meritocratic like?
im kind of surprised that westpointers outnumber rotc people, seems like rotc is more common
The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland has that same requirement, as does the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
I can only speak to Navy shit (was an enlisted sailor in a previous life), and I’m going on vibes and anecdotes, but basically every officer Commander (O-5) and up I ever met was a ring-knocker (slang for Academy fuckers). The majority of them seem to have come from military legacy families. Naval officers are a little different, as they still have a lot of the aristocratic accoutrements of the old Royal Navy. I heard one of them say that the surface navy was the last vestige of medieval feudalism, where the Captain was still the lord and what he says goes. The officers ate on bone-china plates with actual silver silverware (I know, I fucking had to polish them) and drank out of crystal glasses, all in their fancy wood-paneled wardroom while we ate on those divided plastic prison trays, eating dry ass beef with a fork and butter knife.
So, the class character of senior naval officers is predominantly the sons of senior naval officers. They almost all go work for the military industrial complex after they retire at 20 years.
wait so the implication of this is that the marines are probably the best officered lmao
The marines are absolutely the best at actually “being the military” and, yes, that includes their officer selection all the way down to their basic training. Look at the absolute psychos they have at the top and it’s clear they promote on merit far more than other branches.
thats the other side innit. you can get the good soldiers but they’re fucking mad murderous fools
Can you say more about how they operate compared to the other branches?
US marine officers go through navy training, whether the Naval Academy, navy ROTC, or navy OCS. So, both navy and marine officers are
trainedyelled at by both navy chiefs and marine gunnery sergeants. They do tend to be less weird about the aristocratic shit compared to navy officers, and most of the marine officers seem to only really eat in the wardroom on ships because they’re not allowed to eat elsewhere.
but I doubt it has changed a whole lot since:
You wouldn’t be wrong. Minor adjustments to what you’ve said in regards to point one and two however:
The Academies also draw from the “upper crust” of high schools across america with JROTC program head instructors being able to write recommendations alongside the national level legislative representatives even though there’s a limit of recommendations to be handed out yearly per state. From my connections out in the boonies a largly decent chunk of those reccies are partitioned out to service brats of field grade officers to generals but it can vary year by year with more hardcore civvies getting in as well since it’s a free ride through a prestigious college if they get in alongside a guaranteed job to whatever bullshit branch they decide upon.
In regard to ROTC, it’s divided between pure civvies, service brats, and green-to-gold enlisted trying to become mustangs. The pool of personel is akin to a pyramid in the sense that the first two years of the ROTC program are open to all and do not require signing a soul contract to the military for a free ride through college in exchange for a longer contract in the military (or failing and owing the DOD your student loans instead of DOE). Funny enough, a semester to a year of ROTC lets the average person experience life in the military and how much it can fucking suck and it acts to as a great filter to the pool of potential officers and each additional year further sheds potential officers until you’re left with the people that’re either plain deadset on joining the military or fucked up and signed the DOD contract and don’t want to get crushed by student loan debt from the military. The pool of personnel is a lot more diverse here by virtue of being able to sign your soul to the devil is a whole lot easier.
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I’m assuming grand armee is Napoleon’s French army?
Anyway, as of 8ish years ago (doubt it’s changed), the US Air Force basically recruits officers in the three ways the other guy wrote about the Army. The Air Force came from the army and essentially copied/pasted most of its structuring.
I would say as far as the Air Force goes, to my knowledge, most of the officers came in via ROTC (college straight into officer as an Lt). So if you’re comparing the Air Force bulk officer corps, the majority, to French of Napoleon’s day… they’re not bringing their best, folks (the US).
Basically the Air Force rank structure for officers goes 2Lt (2-3 years good behavior, doing your job, etc.) -> 1Lt (same) -> Capt and that’s where many people’s careers go to die because by then you’re looking at 6 years in or so, around 28 years old, and gotta decide 20 years+ (career) or get out, maybe go back to school, and use your officer bullshit on a resume forever. (Btw this a third party perspective- I was never an officer. I did talk to a shit load of them though). As you might imagine, this promotion system results in decently educated officers as far as liberal arts goes, but for war fighting capabilities? Debatable. Admittedly though, I didn’t talk to many pilots or other personnel who could potentially do direct fighting.
The next biggest recruiting block is from the Air Force academy. These guys are generally the ones who are related to or know some high ranked officers. Like their dad was a colonel or some shit. This is the West Point equivalent for the Air Force and almost all of the generals (not all of course) come from here. It’s apparently incredibly shitty to be there as a student, I talked to a guy who had to drop out about it, but for those who make it through retiring as a Lt Col is basically the baseline. A lot of these guys end up being incredibly well educated. They aren’t stupid by any means… just using their knowledge for evil.
And the smallest group (even though it should be reversed, right) is the OCS (or maybe it’s OTS I don’t remember) officers who went from enlisted to officer. Generally these are the best managers because they were NCOs before and they know how shit gets done. I think every single prior enlisted officer I ever met was incredibly down to earth, didn’t bullshit around, was approachable, understanding, etc. Unfortunately the fucking Air Force emphasizes the ROTC recruits, which shouldn’t even BE a path to the military as an officer, over promoting enlisted people. I’d probably say this right here, the over abundance of ROTC officers vs enlisted, is the Air Force’s biggest officer corp weakness. I have no idea, besides elitism at the top, why they don’t change this. (Maybe it has in last 8 years but I doubt it)
As far as dispositions, everyone is there for a paycheck. There is a MASSIVE resentment from the junior enlisted and junior NCOs (below E7) for the pay that fresh officers, 2Lt and 1Lt and HOLY FUCK captains, get. They treat officers today almost the same as they did in 1920 or some shit like this pampered elite that require far far better pay and other compensation (housing pay, etc.) while the enlisted, who actually do the work, get shit upon until they’re an NCO basically. People can look up pay charts themselves if they like, but a very small but realistic comparison is a captain gets paid more than a master sgt. A guy who may well have just graduated college and did ROTC + did his like 6 years of not fucking up getting paid more than a guy probably in his 10th+ year (pretty average promotion time to hit E7 in 10-15 years. A lot of guys retire there at 20 years since the top top ranks E8/E9 are a super tiny minority of the entire Air Force). A captain and a master sgt will generally have close to the same responsibilities too, so it’s not that insane, but when you look at 1Lt pay vs like E4 pay (same time to get these ranks basically) it’s absolutely absurd because the E4 is gonna be leading people in their job field daily while an Lt could very possibly be sitting at a desk checking emails (no joke, also possible for the enlisted too, but not common since their skills are required day to day).
So, I dunno. The pay/responsibility discrepancy has always been a thing in modern militaries between officers and enlisted. It just seems extremely comical now days when you have enlisted with bachelors (and higher) degrees serving under officers who have a bachelors but did ROTC… and that’s it. Nothing more special. It’s something they need to reconcile in some way if maintaining the structure is desired (and of course it is. It’s also pretty core to everything working. That rigid hierarchy). Probably recruiting almost solely from within from enlisted NCOs and making them officers would be the best way to reconcile it, but, hey, wtf do I know. It’s not like promoting knowledgeable and skilled people has always been the best way to build militaries or anything… wait a second…
But also, fuck the military, why am I giving them good advice? Fuck
But also, fuck the military, why am I giving them good advice? Fuck
that is kind of what i’m thinking about. the Revolution provided this unique opportunity for a bunch of assholes who would have languished in the low officer-ranks to become the leaders, and it blew the whole of europe out of the damn water. now, both the soviet union and modern china did do the direct-to-officer education, so maybe i’m missing something (and i defeinitely agree that the military is something that ought to have a hierarchy in it)
but i can’t shake the impression that all the troops should probably be trained for basic administration (NCO-equivalent) and then the stand-outs who are actually good at it can be selected and further trained. but maybe it takes a long ass time to forge a good officer and the time just isn’t there if we want them relatively young, i really don’t know
