Starting from the modern military era, say WWI to present, how common was it for an enlisted man (or draftee), if he decided that he wanted to make the military his career, to make the jump to becoming an officer? And not an NCO. What path would he have to take? Can enlisted men enroll in military academies while on active duty? Is there a different path that can achieve this?
And how often does this happen, because I’m guessing not very often.
My brother in law made an officer in the navy after about 18 years of service, I know he attained a masters degree while in the military but not sure of his rank. My brother was a draftee and went to Vietnam, on returning he was offered Officer Training School as were many others if they chose to stay in the military.
The Marine Corps has (or had) a program where NCOs could apply for officer training. If they were accepted, the MC would pay for them to attend college and then send them to OCS.
There are various enlisted -> officer commissioning program like Sicks Ate describes; they’re use depends on the current force requirements. The most popular one for the Air Force requires applicants to have 2 years of college with a certain minimum GPA and a window of service. There are also age requirements. If accepted, the enlisted folks get promoted to E-5 and attend college for free, but then owe the Air Force 2x the number of years they attended school.
From a manpower perspective, the officer force strength is dictated by congress (you can have x officers this year), and academy grads get first preference, followed by ROTC graduates. Since those folks start their journey 4 years before being commissioned, the air force understaffs junior officer requirements. It then uses enlisted -> officer commissioning programs to help fill the gaps. So if the current graduating classes of academy + rotc folks isn’t going to meet the number of, say, intelligence officers they want, they’ll make up the difference by allowing enlisted people to attend OCS.
What this means is that the number of enlisted folks they’ll promote varies from year to year, as well as the career fields they can be promoted into. Suffice it to say, there’s not a lot of enlisted folks who become pilots. Intelligence and acquisitions/logistics always seem to have openings.
As for how hard it is, I’d say that I’ve never seen anyone who really put forth an effort not get accepted, but it seems to be self-selecting; people who wouldn’t get accepted don’t put forth the effort, either because they don’t want to stay in the military or because they don’t put the time into school.
eta: based on my understanding of recent history, the above is probably true going back to the Vietnam era. Prior to that, I have no idea.
I think most of what you want to know is at/in this PDF
Advanced Management Program
November 19, 2004
Comparative Analysis of ROTC, OCS and Service
Academies as Commissioning Sources
(link may not work – just google the first part of the title)
cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0059/6242/.../tenchfrancisprose.pdf?
Afaik, there are three major ways to become a commissioned officer in the US today:
The difference between #2 and #3 is that with #2, you are undergoing military training concurrent to attending college and some of the classes relate directly to the military. In #3, you already have a bachelor’s degree but no officer training and you need to get that done. So basically OCS gives you the officer training in a few concentrated weeks or months and bypasses all the general college stuff that you already did.
Guys correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe these are the major paths (no pun intended). If the military really really wants you as an officer, they can waive some of the requirements but you have to be the best of the best of the best, not just good enough. For example, you can technically attend OCS without a bachelor’s degree but good luck trying to get admitted- you’re gonna need it.
I was under the impression that it’s possible to enlist under the condition that you get in to OCS and if you get rejected, you are entitled to a good or uncharacterized (i.e. not bad) discharge without having to fulfill a term as an enlisted man. Is this actually true?
At OCS (at least in the Navy) you don’t enlist. You are in the program as an “Officer candidate under instruction” and paid as an E-5, but you are not truly enlisted. If you fail out, or drop on request you go home, you don’t go to the fleet.
I’ll have to ask my dad what route he took. I know he was enlisted in the AF, served time in Germany, then went to college and became an officer (retired a full Colonel).
I think that referring to a draftee as “enlisted” is one of the biggest euphemisms I can think of. I suppose it’s good for the draftees, but I’d imagine that the people who voluntarily enlisted are quite offended. Or am I misunderstanding something?
We usually say that a person elists in the military, but I think it’s equally appropriate to say that they ‘were enlisted’. So somebody who was drafted was enlisted by the armed forces.
Edit: ‘A 364-night, all expenses paid vacation in beyooootiful Southeast Asia’ is a bigger euphemism 
It is extremely common compared to the old days of warfare. It used to be that aristocratic birth and wealth were the main ways to secure a commission. The very concept of an officer drawn from the ranks (as in Sharpe’s Rifles) was astonishingly rare.
Nowadays it is comparatively easy for a good soldier to make the jump. West Point actively recruits junior enlisted, and most years they don’t fill their quota. Many Soldiers also finish their first hitch and use their GI Bill money to pay for ROTC training. Then, of course, there are always Soldiers who use their tuition assistance to finish up a degree and apply for officer’s candidate school.
As long as you have a college degree, have no criminal history, and are a decently intelligent human being, it’s not terribly difficult.
Are we talking about the U.S. military only?
Bootstrap (non-traditional officer) programs have come and gone over the decades. One of the more common paths during WWII was a battlefield commission, such as Audie Murphy got (joined as a private in 1942, was commissioned as a 2nd LT in 1944). The Army is probably most flexible when it comes to commissioning. My best friend joined the Army during Vietnam and, because of his test scores, was offered a shot at OCS right out of boot camp, which he made it through to become a 2nd LT. The Navy doesn’t have that sort of program (or didn’t). The Navy requires a commissioned officer to have a degree, preferably in a science or math discipline, but not always.
Officers generally go the ROTC or Academy appointment route to obtain a commission. But there were or are bootstrap programs like NESEP (Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program) that allowed enlisted men to attend a university full-time to attain a 4-year degree in a science or math discipline. Admission was for Petty Officers, and based on test scores, then a prep school in San Diego to brush up on math, physics, etc, then assignment to an accredited university such as Purdue or many state university programs. Students went year-round and continued to receive pay at their enlisted rate. In the summer of their junior years, officer candidates went to an abbreviated OCS and possibly interviewed for the nuclear program or others.
There is also a Navy program called LDO (Limited Duty Officer), which is available for senior enlisted and warrant officer candidates. Additionally, there is a warrant officer program available for senior enlisted personnel.
I wonder if it was easier to make the leap in the newer RAF than traditional army/navy. My grandfather and his brother both came from a working class background, spent their entire careers in the RAF, starting off at the bottom in the early 1920s, rising up to NCOs and both gaining full officer commissions in the late 1930s.
My grandfather finished as a Wing Commander (equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel) and my great uncle as a Squadron Leader (eq. to a Major).
Well, that’s an interesting way of looking at it.
“Enlisted” is the official term for all servicemembers who have not been granted an officer’s commission (or appointment, for those WO1s out there). Whether or not a person is a draftee, as long as he has stripes he is “Enlisted.”
The Army has a scholarship program called Green to Gold to subsidize the education costs for exactly what the OP is asking about: link.
I would guess that I’ve met about a dozen service members who went from enlisted to officers in the Army, Navy, and Air Force. (I haven’t personally met any Marine who did the same, but I’m sure they exist.) Because of that, I would say that it is not unusual, but not common. There’s even a name for these officers: mustangs.
It’s just plain English. Growing up, I presumed that every enlisted man got that way by choosing to enlist. I must have gotten to my thirties when I learned that it could also apply to those who were forcibly enlisted by the draft board.
In 1984 I was an NCO (E-6) in the US Air Force and completed a BS degree going to night school. I took some tests and started to do the paperwork to apply for Officer Candidate School. However I made Master Sergeant (E-7) around that time and decided to stay enlisted.
I think so. There’re two different, but related, usages or definitions of the verb “enlist”.
E.g.:
“You served in Vietnam. Were you drafted?”
“No, I got out of high school and decided that I wanted to serve my country right then and there and not wait around in my parents’ basement waiting for my draft number to come up. I went downtown and enlisted. The next year, my brother was drafted and we both ended up serving together as enlisted men. Good times.”
When I was in college, (early 1980’s) several of my friends were Air Force officer trainees. They had served an enlistment term in the USAF, and then entered a program where the AF paid for college along with something for living expenses, then when they graduated they became AF officers. They were still enlisted, and had to wear uniform to school once every couple weeks IIRC, but otherwise were pretty normal students, if better than average. Their AF “job” was to be a student. I also knew one guy who was in a similar Navy program…studying nuclear engineering, but I am not sure if he was ever enlisted.