My close friend enlisted in the Army several years after college with the intent of going to OCS and becoming an officer, since he couldn’t go the ROTC route, and I don’t think the Army does straight OCS commissioning.
Anyway, he said that it was a very weird thing to be saluted after having been enlisted for a short while, especially by people he’d gone to Basic with.
I, for one, am interested to hear about the IDF (and, at the risk of a hijack also to know whether in Israel you get to choose your branch or is picked for you according to your “talents”).
I never understood why guys who were in the E-7 to E-9 range would want to bother with officer programs. Why would anybody want to go from a senior position that took years to achieve to being the lowest guy on the totem pole? I never knew an E-9 who ever even considered going to CWO. Not only does a Navy Master Chief get more respect than anybody below the grade of O-6, he would take a pay cut to be a warrant officer or an ensign.
In the Army, warrants get to stay in MUCH longer than enlisted. IIRC, they can stay in thirty years from the time they are appointed, so they can exceed the thirty year limit enlisted soldiers face.
In the late 1920s officers in the US Merchant Marine were required to apply for reserve Naval Commissions. My dad who did not graduate from high school recieved an EDO (engineerng duty only) ensigns commissin.
By 1971 not all the graduates of the maritime academys were getting Naval commissions. Things change over time.
I’m a (retired) submariner. Had a skipper on my last boat who was a former Marine E6.
Well, it’s like this.
First of all, let me just note that the IDF doesn’t see a connection between a college degree and an officer’s commission, unless the degree is in the specific field the officer will be working in, and even then only under special circumstances. The lowest rank that requires a college degree is, I think, Lieutenant Colonel. Certain training courses grant their graduates degrees along with their rank, but that’s considered more of a perk than anything else.
Having said that, there are four basic ways to become an IDF officer:
Pilots and deck officers in the navy (meaning officers in charge of actually sailing the ship) start out directly in flight school or the naval academy, go through as many years of training as it takes, and those few who graduate are given an officer’s rank and a plane/ship. Those who drop out along the way continue serving elsewhere in the military at the rank the achieved when they dropped out.
ROTCs are recruits who are sent to college right away - paid for by the milititary - where they study a suibject determined by the army, and undergo military training during school vacations. When they graduate, they get their rank and serve for several more years in whatever field (usually technical) they majored in. If they drop out of the program, they get sent to regular military service.
Certain professionals receive automatic degrees - M.D.s, for instance, receive an officer’s rank, no matter where they got their degree.
The above three paths provide 5%, maybe 10% of the IDF’s officers. The rest are brought up through the ranks, from enlisted to NCO to officer. In particular, all ground combat officers start out as regular troops, then regular NCOs, and if their commanders think they’re officer material, they’re offered the option of going to Officer’s School. In may ways, where you start in the military determines your military career - for instance, all of the IDF Chiefs of Staff (except for the one pilot) started out as grunts in either infantry, airborne or *sayeret *(special ops) units.
As a result, the command dynamic can be somewhat different than in other armies. In particular, we don’t have the junior officer/senior NCO relationship you see in other armies, as there are very few career NCOs in combat positions. In every combat unit I’ve seen, the lieutenants and captains were always the most experienced, most physically fit, most highly trained and most motivated soldiers, with the NCOs playing a more supporting role. The officer/enlisted dynamic is also different - the famous (or infamous) IDF informality largely comes from the fact that both officers and enlisted essentially come from the same place.
No kiddin!? It didn’t occur to me that they could also switch to the other Naval Service upon commissioning. Did he keep his high and tight? 
Hey Jerry, our stories are similar. I was a Staff Sergeant (E-6) when I completed my degree. I seriously considered going to OCS and getting a commission. In the end I decided to stay enlisted. The reasons for my decision at that time included OCS and TBS requiring a lot of time away from home and the family - more time away on top of the time I’d already been away.
So we have learned that it’s reasonably common to move from being an enlisted man in the U.S., and it’s quite standard to do this in Israel. What about other countries?
I preume that Pilots and Naval Officers are expected to be long service professionals and sign up for that commitment?
Very interesting, thanks, especially regarding the (possible) origin of the “the famous (or infamous) IDF informality”.
ETA - do you get to choose your own branch? Or is it assigned to you?
Yes. I think they sign for a minimum of 7 years, and the army invests a lot in retaining them.
The Army wants to retain Naval officers?;)
I have heard about joint operations, but that is ridiculous. 
Yeah, I forget that unified services aren’t exact standard.
How does a unified service work in the Israeli manner? Is it a case that they are independant in all but name with only command staff being the same or is it a case that the unification begins at muchb lower levels. Is it possible to be assigned as a cook on both a ship and later with a Tank battalion?
Generally speaking, troops tend to stay within their own units; if you start out in an infantry brigade, you’ll probably stay in one your entire career. At the same time, they receive personnel from the same basic pool - one graduate of Cook School can be sent to a tank brigade, and his classmate sent to a naval unit. Bear in mind that the Israeli navy is small, and probably has more land-based than ship-based postings. A unit’s logistical and clerical tail is pretty much similar to that of any other unit, land, sea or air.
That said, a certain amount of effort is made to keep the air force and navy separate from the (much larger) rest of the army. Although their ranks are the same and the chain of command is unified, they wear different uniforms, have different traditions,m and tend to think of them selves as more exclusive sections of the military.
To add a bit of detail about the Israeli Unified Service – while it is true that Air Crew and Naval Crew officers have separate training, all other officers go through the same Officer School (although possibly different paths within it), before completing their training within their corps (it’s not just the branch, part II of officer training will be different for e.g. Logistics, Military Police and Artillery cadets [I think this is the term; someone partially through Officer Training] – all of which are Army)
For example, when I went to Officer Training (back in 19mumblemumble) I was in the “Basic” training path (not to be confused with Basic Training!), so no front-liners in my course, but I (Air Force) was in the same platoon with, I think, 2 other AF guys, a Navy guy and 10-12 Army guys.
And the Infantry courses as well as the Armor/Artillery courses were on the same camp at the same time.
The same is true for Basic Training, incidentally. With rare exceptions, enlisted men (and women) go through a standardized Basic and are only assigned their branch (let alone their unit) after completing the course.
I wouldn’t call the exceptions that rare, although they are the minority - after all, all combat troops go through basic training in their own units. Not only that, they usually go through basic training *as *a unit. That means, in my case, that the company I started out with in the first day of basic training - enlisted, NCOs and officers - was the same company I deployed with six months later.
True – I was thinking of non-combat roles. Support roles aren’t really that unified either, in the sense that there are very few AF/Navy kids going into Field Support roles. I think 95% of AF/Navy recruits do Basic Level 02… (the lowest level.) Those who don’t however will be together with e.g., Artillery, Sappers, etc… (at least if it’s the same now as it was in the previous millennium. I haven’t even been called up for reserve duty in over 5 years [too old and decrepit :o]; I did basic… well, let’s just say “in the '80’s,” so quite a while ago!)