It cannot grow indefinitely, right? Do you need more than a couple of ranks for every order-of-magnitude increase in the size of your army?
It hasn’t grown since 1958. By that I’m counting the number of pay grades. There have been shifts like multiple specialist levels but the number of grades haven’t changed. The law that was made in 1958 ensured that all of the branches had the same number of pay grades and equal pay.
For those who want to know entirely too much about US military ranks and their history, I can recommend the following playlist:
Sure, but I mean, over the scope of all of military history. On that scale, since 1958 isn’t a very long time.
That has a lot to do with the difference between grade and rank. The current officer ranks have been pretty similar going back a very long time. For enlisted you pretty much got to sergeant and that’s it. You were a sergeant at platoon level, you were sergeant at brigade level. They started adding ranks to the enlisted side because soldiers were in those positions of increased authority and responsibility but had the same rank as those under them. I believe before 1958 the top grade was E7. First Sergeants got paid the same as platoon sergeants. The act in 1958 just recognized what was already a fact and assigned pay grades to those levels of responsibility as well as creating uniformity and parity in pay across services. There is no need to change further since all levels of responsibility are covered by an appropriate grade.
In the 50s there was a shift to a larger standing Army. Before that you could win a war with a military mustered up from a civilian population with little training time.* Changes in technology and tactics (and politics) meant a shift to a larger volunteer force. For a soldier in the Army for the duration plus 6 months it wasn’t a big deal. My uncle made First Sergeant in 2 years and was out of the Army in 1945. For someone they expect to put in 20 years getting paid for the added responsibility is more important. At least it is if you want to have him reenlist.
*Yes there was the draft in Vietnam. From watching movies you would think they were all draftees. 25% of military personnel in Vietnam were drafted. 66% of the military was drafted in WWII.
Yes but a significant percent of non-draftees enlisted in to avoid getting drafted into the Army and sent overseas. They wouldn’t have enlisted otherwise.
You misunderstood the stat. Many enlisted in the National Guard to lessen their chances of going. Many enlisted in other branches knowing there was less of a chance to go to Vietnam. Some of those that enlisted went to places like Germany. That’s not what the stat says. 25% of those that were in the country of Vietnam during the war were draftees. That’s not the percentage of the entire military.
I agree, but as an aside I think the *last significant change to officer ranks happened in the 1980s when the US Navy briefly flirted with the idea of making its 1-star rank “Commodore” before finally settling on Rear Admiral (Lower Half).
For much of the Navy’s history before that, including WWII, the US Navy had no 1-star rank: all those promoted from Captain to the next grade wore 2-star insignia (though, IIRC, there was a period of time in which the lower/upper half distinction, based on seniority, did essentially result in the less senior Rear Admirals being paid on par with a 1-star, even if they didn’t have the 1-star insignia). We do still have Commodores today. And we did historically going back hundreds of years, but in the historical and present context, Commodore is not a rank, but a billet. Just like you call the commanding officer of a ship Captain even if they only hold the rank of Lieutenant, you call an officer commanding a squadron of ships Commodore.
*Oh, and there have been all manner of adjustments to the Warrant Officer grades. I could google it, but I’m not even sure that the Air Force has warrant officers (if they do, it’s something they would have re-instituted in the last few years).
I see now. Thanks.
I was in USAF 1981-1988. Did ROTC 1978-1981.
In that era it was commonly taught that USAF had no warrant officers. They had had them back in the 1960s, but somewhere along the way USAF killed that part of their structure.
I was once at a high level HQ for some training / staff meeting. Not the Pentagon, but just below that level. This would have been about 1985. I was amazed to encounter a USAF W4 in a hallway near the folks we were meeting with. When I asked, they said he was the last Mohican. And rather famous for his extremely long career due to some wrinkle in the regs. He wasn’t elderly, but by the youthful standards of the military he was ancient. Had to be in his upper 50s.
AFAIK USAF has not reinstated warrants.
Yeah, I’ve often thought Commodore was a perfectly cromulent word for O-7. Being a Rear Admiral (lower half) sounds worse than being a Lieutenant (junior grade) somehow, like part of a pantomime horse. Here is an article giving more details.
I read an anecdote about an army lieutenant colonel at some soiree in DC talking with a matron who kept addressing him as, “Lieutenant.” His buddys were ribbing him about it later and he said he didn’t mind since her heart was in the right place, but he’d love to be around when she met a rear admiral.
The last USAF warrant officer was appointed in 1959. The last USAF active duty warrant officer in service was CWO4 James Long, who retired in 1980. The last reserve USAF warrant officer was CWO4 Bob Barrow, who retired in 1992.
I wonder if the discussion of military ranks could go to its own thread.
Good point. 
We can take it back around to at his rank and position (lower enlisted Cav Scout) he has zero intelligence value. What Cav Scouts do is not classified. He will have no access to any strategic plans. There is nothing to be learned about US troop deployments. They are at Camp Casey. Oops I spilled the beans. US troops moved off of the DMZ 20 years ago. His propaganda value is the total of his worth to NK.
If we’re suppose to be negotiating for his release then calculate what the NK’s would spend housing him for 20 years and accept half that in payment for taking him back.
Ransom of Private Red Chief?
How much does 100 kilos of rice cost even at NK prison system government procurement prices?
The other thing that really confuses me about the ranks is that gold outranks silver in the insignia.