My soon to be father-in-law is a retired Army pilot and CW-5, so I’m curious how a Warrant Officer of his rank (and Warrant Officers in general) are viewed by the rest of the Army. I know there are strict protocols about who salutes whom, and that Warrant Officers are outranked by the regular Commissioned Officers. But I’m not asking about rank, I’m wondering more about people’s attitudes. I mean, I assume being a CW-5 is seen as a more impressive achievement than being a first lieutenant, even if the lieutenant has the higher rank. Right? And if so, is there some rank among the commissioned officers that’s roughly analogous to CW-5 in terms of prestige?
As an active duty member of the US Air Force (don’t have Warrant Officers), I am thoroughly confused. With both the depth of their experience and breadth of their jobs, we (as in ‘the AF’) spreads a line between what is done by the officer, and what is done by the senior NCO.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t trust a CW3 flying my helicopter. I absolutely would. But since the Air Force did away with the Warrant Officer program back in the late 50’s, I have had minimal experience with them.
[Personal Opinion Due To My Ignorance]
To me, they’re just “super sergenants”. I hate to say it, but depending on the subject I would listen to an Army Sergeant Major or Master Sergeant (E-9, E-8 respectively). There’s that ‘time in service’ thing that I would trust the long experience of a Senior NCO versus what might be a younger Warrant Officer.
Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any other Warrant Officers outside of the Army. Do the Marines or Navy have them?
[/POD2MI]
Tripler
I’m coining that new term: “Pod-two-me”. Dibs! I call!
All:
As a former Navy NCO and as a former Navy commissioned officer, Warrant Officers are respected and feared just like regular commissioned officers. Yes, the Navy and Marine Corps have them (Chief Warrant 1 - 5).
Your soon-to-be should be respected like an officer in the U.S. military, because he was.
tim314, you should take this as an important lesson in life. NEVER tell future FILs that you surf the Dope!
Oh good, since you’re a Navy man maybe you can answer a question I have about WOs there. From various reading, much of it fiction, I’ve gotten the impression that a WO in the navy is often the “unseen X” of an “X’s Mate”. For instance, a Chief Boatswain’s Mate might be in charge of the deck department on a small to medium sized ship, and see that the orders of the Officer Of The Deck are carried out. He or she would likely be a CPO. But on a larger ship, the person in charge of the Deck Department might well be an actual Boatswain, who would be a WO. OTOH you also have Cook’s mates, and I doubt that cooks are WOs. Same with Carpenters Mates (I assume Carpenters would be higher ranking POs), and with Pharmacists Mates (assuming Pharmacists would always be commissioned officers).
Where is a good list of jobs that naval WOs can do?
Thanks for the CHINFO blurb. I was going to do the same thing.
A Chief Boatswain’s Mate is a Chief Petty Officer; trust me, my dad was one, and they’re definitely old school <brrrr, chills from disciplinarian childhoold>.
A Warrant Officer in charge of Boatswain’s Mates would be the Deck Division Officer.
Boatswain’s Mates rank from E-4 (Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class) to E-7 (Boatswain’s Mate Chief Petty Officer). There is NO E-1 to E-3 Boatswain’s Mate; they are called Seaman Recruit, Seaman Apprentice and Seaman, by definition. The Seaman thing is fodder for endless jokes.
Back on task: I’ve never seen a WO for Boatswain’s Mates, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere. Where I’ve actually worked with WOs is specific technical fields like Cryptology, Electronics, and other fields requiring more technical skill than management ability.
The Warrant specialty for BMs is Boatswain. We have bunches of 'em in the CG. They typically serve as Commanding Officers of smaller cutters and larger SAR/LE stations, or as deck officers on larger cutters. There’s plenty of shore jobs for them as well.
A slight nitpick - I became a Boatswain Mate at the E3 level - an SNBM. I had everything required to advance to E4, including Time in Grade, but had to wait on an advancement list while slots opened up. There is actually a rating badge for this that you could wear on your dress jacket. Also, there are Senior Chief and Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate as well.
Tim314, I may not be a real good source here, never having been in the military, but I have made a civilian career in Army Aviation, where there are lots of warrant officiers. I had a really good friend that enlisted at Private, and retired as Lt. Colonel, who did a stint as Warrant Officer. He explained it to me like this - as a Warrant, your (anyway, his) job is to fly helicopters. That’s pretty prestigious, and a lot of fun. But as a commissioned officer, your job is to “lead men”, and flying happens to be your specialty. I think he enjoyed his Warrant days the most, but became an officier for greater advancement and opportunities.
Seems to me, that people who respect the military as a carreer will grant a little more prestige to commissioned officers, while those who respect personal skills more will give a little more to the Warrant.
In the Army, you have Warrant Officers mostly in highly technical fields where command of troops is a secondary consideration, and understanding of entire battle systems is essential. When you have a guy like that, you say “Yes Sir” to him if you are an enlisted man, and you generally take any important questions to him, rather than the Line Grunt Second Lieutenant who generally knows less about the system than you do, if you are both in your first tour. You ask the looie about soldier stuff. (when are they gonna get us better chow, why is the mail late, can I have compassionate leave to get laid this weekend, cause it’s been months, sir.)
In the old days, offering Warrant Officer ranks was one of the things the army did for senior NCO’s who were just too darned valuable to let go into civilian contractor work at three times their current salary. Of course, five years later, you had to hire him at four times his Warrant Officer salary. In Viet Nam, it was a way to get helicopter pilots who flew around alone, and could walk across a runway and get hired anywhere in the world. Not much need for command experience, flying a two man helicopter.
We had one W4 when I was in who had been in the Nike Ajax/Herc program for its entire lifetime, from first deployment to the then present day. (He was contemplating retirement with thirty three years when I last saw him.) I can tell you he was easily as qualified as the Manufacturer’s Engineer Representative when it came to those particular three hundred pieces of equipment. And he also understood exactly what grunt soldiers, and battlefield conditions would really do when the instructions were just wrong.
Good man. I saluted him, not his bars.
Tris
Never been in the Army, but here’s a USAF answer: “Hard to differentiate from one another.”
Didn’t run into hardly any Warrants as a tanker (had a Battalion Physician’s Assistant who was a WO2, and ran our Battalion Aid Station until some trauma surgeon direct commissioned for DS/DS and became the Battalion Surgeon), but in Aviation, you couldn’t throw a grenade without taking out a platoon of 'em.
Overall, Warrants are above-average competence within their field (think of them kind of as the officer equivalent of the old enlisted “Specialists”), but like any collection of human beings in uniform, there were good eggs and bad eggs; Regular Joes and assholes. A few tended towards arrogance simply because they were so damned good within their field. I think that they were really insecure.
The rest I knew went just the other way; they became very relaxed and confident because they were so very good at their jobs (and so very indispensable).
Regardless of service branch, US warrant officers are intermediate between E-9 and O-1.
WO-1 is a special warrant issued by the Secretary of the appropriate service, CW-2 through CW-5 are warrants issued by the President, hence are effectively commissioned officers.
The distinction is that the warrant officer is not in the command line: a warrant officer is a technical leader, providing expertise in highly specialised, career class fields.
The reason that the Air Force discontinued their warrant officers is two-fold: the supermajority of jobs in the Air Force, enlisted or otherwise, are technically oriented, and the creation of permanent E-7 through E-9 grades.
In the Army, Marine Corps and Navy, there are much larger enlisted forces than in the Air Force, and in these services there are lots of non-technical jobs.
As for the CW-5 grade: The original plans called for six grades of warrant officer, paralleling the commissioned grades O-1 through O-6. CW-5 relieves the inevitable career compression experienced by the limited number of promotions and salary jumps allowed warrant officers.
In the Army, warrant officers are in abundance as helicopter pilots and CID investigators. They also serve in certain highly technical fields. They might be present in cryptography and medical support also. The original Army warrant officers worked in explosives and ordnance.
In the Marine Corps, they have warrant grades WO-1 through CW-5. In the Navy and Coast Guard, they only have grades 2 through 5 (no WO-1). I have not a freaking clue as to what they do, though I suspect that the Marine Corps warrant officers have some involvement in ordnance.
In the UK services, the original warrant officers were the sailors who ran the ships staffed by army officers in the early Royal Navy. Warrant officers in the UK services are merged in with the senior sergeant grades, and are viewed as senior NCOs, as opposed to the officer status of warrant officers in the US services.
As for how they’re perceived differently, I can offer this. As technical specialists, warrant officers are very practical and very, very down to earth compared to both the enlisted ranks and the officers ranks. In the non-professional sense, officers generally “tolerate” the enlisted and have a lot of disdain for them, high-ranking NCO’s aside. I guess I’m trying to say that a lot of them dickheads. Enlisted people once they’ve surpassed the E6 level kind of lose touch with their roots, too, and everything becomes focused on promotion points or trying to get in good with the officers even though they’re disdained behind their backs. Warrant officers, though, seem to fall outside of this stupid competitiveness and us vs. them type of culture, and they’re generally very cool people. Never met a single one that was a dickhead – as an enlisted air traffic control technical guy (not controller) I met more than the average number of warrants across many, many, many technical fields. I stil have a lot more respect for them today then I every had for enlisted or commissioned people in general.
There’s not really any disdain on the part of the commissioned, because they’re mostly educated, technical experts, and they are, after all, officers. From the commissioned viewpoint, warrants are technical people that aren’t in the command structure. They’re not little 2LT’s just out of ROTC trying to show the world how big their balls are, and they’re not base commanderss with no time for anyone.
Of course that’s kind of an overall sense of things, and that’s my perspective having been enlisted. I have a lot more wisdom these days, and while a lot of my youthful opinions have changed, the “us vs. them”-ness of the military hasn’t.
My understanding is that a commission requires an act of Congress. Is that also the case with chief warrant officers?
this was not always the case but Warrant Officers can be placed in command. It is not normally done but it can occur. In numbers I’m sure the highest amount of warrants are in aviation. There are also warrant specialties in most of the combat support fields but not in combat arms. There are quite a few WOs in transportation, quartermaster, intelligence and CID. They got rid of most medical WOs when they made the PAs commissioned officers. As to the attitude of those around them? They are officers and thought of as such. Some are less formal than others and don’t mind being called Chief instead of sir. No one mistakes then as super-sergeants. For the record warrant officer candidate school is one of the hardest schools in the Army. Just getting excepted to the school is very tough. They earned the respect they get.
FTR I have been enlisted, NCO and officer in the Army, aviation and armor.
US Army Warrant Officer Information
Quoting from above:
Wandering a little off topic, my dad retired as a USAF 0-6. He had about 3 versions of a retirement ceremony. The thing he was proudest of was being made an honorary Chief. This is a double secret ballot thing, and only the officers who were respected as well as tolerated received the tap.
Right. The reason for the phenomenon Spectre mentions and Scruloose confirms is historical – in the old, old, OLD, days there would be on a ship certain individuals who would be THE Bos’un, THE Quartermaster, THE Machinist etc. (of either the ship or of the respective watch depending on how big a vessel) who not be commissioned officers but were above the rest of the company. And of course those who backed these guys up were the “’s mates". When the rank/rating system became standardized in the early 20th century, in a lot of specialties the split was made in the respective community so the enlisted rating kept the " mate” form, and the Warrant specialty retained the plain old description, even as the real-world functions changed.