I’d think that a person who would make a mediocre infantry private could easily be someone who’d make a terrific general. I mean, he may be able to follow orders and keep his stuff adequately squared away, but he may not be a particularly good shot, or be good at field-stripping a machine gun, or marching for miles with a pack, etc…
But the same guy may be a terrific leader, a terrific administrator and have a very good grasp of strategy and tactics, which count more when you get past being a company or platoon commander than actual marksmanship and soldier skills.
Right, that was basically the point I was making above.
There’s a big difference between “Can you follow orders, clean your gun, shoot halfway decently, and march for a few miles?” and “Do you consistently exceed expectations with respect to following orders, cleaning your gun, shooting, and marching?”
Even the leaders need marginal skills in the “grunt” work. A general that can’t shoot is much different than a general who isn’t particularly the sharpest shot on the base.
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What other leadership-track programs exist (other than the military)? Are there programs where someone with a lot of education and/or skills (but no police experience) can go straight into Police Academy (Leadership Track) and come out as a Detective, supervisory Sergeant, or something like that? Can someone with an MBA and no retail experience go straight into managing the night shift at Burger King (with a likely promotion to General Manager within 2-5 years) without having to flip burgers for a few years for minimum wage? Sure, he probably would have to learn to flip them at some point, but he would do it as part of managerial training or whatnot.
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Hospital Manager comes to mind. Straight out of school they are managing doctors and surgeons with decades of experience. They don’t know how to do surgery themselves, but they know how to manage medical personnel.
By field promotions in time of war. It happened in the past, I doubt it’s even conceivably possible in modern times, and I’d be curious to know what was the last known example of a grunt rising up all the way to generalship.
One notable exception was Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933).
He was the first, and remains the only, British Army officer to rise from the ranks to come a Field Marshall. He left service (a servant in a private house) to enlist aged 17 (5 months underage) as a trooper in the 16th (The Queen’s) Lancers and rose to became Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS - now called Chief of Defense Staff) and thus the professional Head of the British Army from 1916 to 1918, during the First World War.
Conversely, the only current Israeli military officers ranked Major General or higher who didn’t start out as enlisted men in combat units (infantry, armor, artillery or special forces) are the pilots. Even the commander of the Israeli Navy started out as the Israeli equivalent of a SEAL.
It happens occasionally. Vittorio Tresti (originally from Italy) joined the French Foreign Legion in the 1950s as a 2nd class legionnaire. He retired as a 2-star general in the 1990s. Quite extraordinary.
I’ve known plenty of fast food/retail managers who either never worked entry level in fast food/retail or did it so long before they got jobs as managers that the experience was irrelevant . This is particularly true for night/assistant managers, as they are often people who are currently working in some other field and taking on the retail/ff as a second job.
As far as police - well , it's not uncommon for police and other government agencies to have a division similar to , but not exactly the same as the military. The similarity is that there are two entry points into the system and no one can enter at the intermediary steps. Just like you can enter the Army as either a private or a 2nd Lt but not in between , there are police departments where you can enter as either a police officer or a deputy chief ( or deputy commissioner ).
None of those guys didn’t serve a tremendously long time before going to officer school, but they all enlisted and then became officers a few years later.
One might keep in mind that during the War Between The States, Custer was either the youngest Brigadier General or Major General in the Army. I forget which, but he ended up as a 23 year old Major General. He got downranked after the war was over.
While searching for him, I found a foreign legion board mentioning a second similar case : a Hugo Gottlieb who enlisted in 1938, ended WW2 as second lieutenant, and also retired as general in 1979 (no mention of his exact rank, but he eventually became secretary general of the French ministry of defense, so I guess not as a mere brigadier general).
And fuck! Searching for Gottlieb final rank, I’m coming upon a third name, a Van Hecke who also went all the way from enlisted to general.
I’m amazed. I truly didn’t think such military careers were possible, since, say, the 19th century. Or maybe it’s a specificity of the Foreign Legion?
That’s a bit different. If they just served briefly before joining an officer school, they aren’t much different from someone who started as 2nd lieutenant.
Thinking about it, it probably has more to do with them fighting in several wars. Gottlieb for instance was NCO during WW2, junior officer at the beginning of the Indochina war, senior officer during the Algeria war.
So maybe field promotions are still a thing in modern armies (or were still a thing during the second half of the 20th century at least).
Yes, but during the Slaveholders Rebellion, Custer’s promotion to General was not because of ability or demonstrated competence, but because of family connections, i.e. corruption.
Not the same thing, but you could be a terrific leader and administrator who, y’know, gets elected President despite lacking any knack for marksmanship or long marches. Heck, you can likewise get tapped for Secretary of Defense after no time in uniform; William Cohen did it fairly recently, just like Dick Cheney before him and Harold Brown before him; dunno if any of 'em had the makings of a young infantryman.
(Obligatory joke about Cheney accidentally shooting a guy in the face goes here.)
There is an officer’s school. Candidates usually come from the ranks of junior NCOs - squad leaders, tank commanders and the like. You need to have command training (squad leader’s school or similar) as well as command experience to be accepted.