In Jerry Pournelle’s “military SF” novel Prince of Mercenaries, a subplot involves a college kid who is arrested during a political protest on Earth. He is deported to the colony world of Tanith, where he is made a de facto slave laborer on a plantation. After a series of adventures he winds up in the hands of Falkenberg’s Legion, an interstellar mercenary regiment. Debating what to do with him, the officers decide to train him as an officer (the young man already knows how to fly a helicopter). One of them comments, “After all, he’d make a very poor enlisted man.” Nobody dissents or remarks on that.
What does this mean? Pournelle is a U.S. Army veteran who apparently knows a lot about military organization and culture. Is it simply the received wisdom (among officers) that an intelligent, educated, middle-class person cannot be content or competent in the enlisted ranks?
In any case, when I was in, enlisted personnel were expected to learn their jobs and advance in rank. Advancement generally meant that they would be put in a position to lead and train others.
Stupid people would typically not advance, and frequently presented behavioral problems that led to their early departure.
You’ll find a wide variety of people in the enlisted ranks, but the military does depend on them all to be sharp and on the ball, and not stupid.
To answer the OP; no. In fact, were you to try to run an army with nothing but dull enlisted people, you would never have any bright NCOs, so the army would never function properly.
It is a matter of course that
the university-educated soldiers generally become officers, and
In most Western societies, there are so many alternative job options that the Army has no choice but to take a lot of less-than-brilliant recruits,
… which means there will always be SOME dullards in the ranks. But the best armies in the world all have lots of bright enlisted members - I’ve known lots of them, and in fact probably the smartest human I’ve ever known was enlisted. Smart soldiers generally do far better than the dull ones. In theory, if you could have an army made up only of intelligent people, it would be much, much better than an army of average-brained people.
It’s not about the level of intelligence, but the level of free thinking. An enlisted man is not suppossed to be a free thinker. He is suppossed to obey and execute the orders of the officers appointed over him. Since he was arrested (showing a disregard for rules and disobedience) for a polictical protest (showing free thinking and disagreement with his government) he would most definitely not make a good enlisted soldier.
This, BTW, is my assessment of the line from the book and an interpretation of it’s meaning. I do not necessarily agree with the train of thought. But it does happen to be a generalization that enlisted soldiers should not be free thinkers. They will question orders, bitch about the inefficiency of their unit and the shitty decisions made by their officers. They would constantly mention ways to improve the goings on and how things should be, much to the frustration of his superiors. You know… all the shit I do everyday! And it would all, of course, fall on deaf ears. Because enlisted men couldn’t possibly know better than their CO.
I have always wondered, why do not more sharp enlisted people become officers? My boyfriend was enlisted but went to college at nights, got a degree, got into OTS and is now an officer, and earning a master’s degree. Some of his enlisted troops are really bright and capable, and I wonder why they don’t pursue becoming an officer. I mean, the money’s better, and you don’t have to put up with the indignity of some 25-year-old know-it-all asshole officer barking orders at you when you’re 100 times more capable than him.
When it really comes down to it, it’s only a college degree that sets them apart, which really means nothing. I know plenty of people who have the piece of paper but who are total idiots.
Well, I’m not denying that intelligence is needed in all ranks. But really, when it’s someone’s ass on the line, there’s no room for talking back to your officer, or whatever. Maybe he didn’t make the best choice - whatever. The result of an officer making a somewhat sub-optimal decision is better the result of your entire company getting into deadlock and picked off/mowed down because people won’t follow orders.
That’s not to say that if an officer REALLY FUCKS UP, that company isn’t toast. That part is definitely true. But it doesn’t matter if the dissent is correct or not - as long as there is dissent, the reflexes of the company, the morale and all, is going to take a nosedive.
My 2 cents.
Also, I tend to think that prior-enlisted officers make better officers because they relate better to their troops, in that they had been there themselves.
During my short USAF tenure, there were a couple of reasons this occured. First was the hurdle of completing college. While many were intelligent, efficient, and proficient, they didn’t have the desire to get a college degree. Second was macho. They bought into the officers = pencil pushers while enlisted ‘get stuff done’. Third was responsibility. Medium grade officers had more responsibilty (translated: ability to get into trouble) than medium grade NCOs.
Captain Fast wasn’t commenting on Mark’s intelligence. He was commenting on his motivations. If you had read the rest of the paragraph you would have seen that.
Agreed. One can be as sharp as all out and still not care too much for shouldering responsibility - in particular command responsibility.
I consider myself halfway decent as smarts go, and I was certainly brighter than a good part of my Army superiors. Doesn’t mean I had it in me to do the job. Officers need a certain attitude and specific personal traits as well as intelligence - and I’d even go out on a limb and say that in some officer functions, attitude and people skills count for way more than intelligence. A cynic like me would have a very hard time selling anyone on the idea of storming a machine gun emplacement or somesuch.
But all other things being equal, any officer would pick the smart platoon over the dumb one. Smart soldiers make life easier - in particular, smart soldiers know when to exercise initiative and when to shut up, do what they’re told on the double and keep their oh-so-clever ideas to themselves. Or, in other words: The smart enlisted man can act smart or dumb as the situation demands. The not-so-smart enlisted man only has one mode of operation.
Also is the inability to have the job you want. The Army will not gauruntee jobs for officers. And one minute they could be an infantry XO, and the next minute an Artillery CO.
If some people really like their branch, then they will not want to be an officer. Also, some people really like being on the line, and an officer career will take you off the line faster than he might like. In the infantry - and others, I’m sure - an Lt. wants to stay a PL. But he may get very limited PL time before he is put in a staff or office type position. In Special Forces, a Cpt can only stay on the team for a year. Two years if he denies promotion and really wants to stay longer. But that’s about the max - 2 years of team time. So many officers will actually resign their commission and go Warrant.
The Battalion surgeon (a Major) in my old unit wanted desperately to deploy with the A-Team. But he couldn’t in his rank and position. So he resigned his commission to become a Team Medic and an E-5 Sgt!!! For some people, it’s just not about the money.
For me… it’s a little of all those things, plus paperwork involved in switching, and the DUI that most likely disqualifies me anyway. But I have the college needed and a 144 GT, so I’m definitely smart enough and capable. But I’d hate to one day have the Army tell me I have to become a Cook or Supply Officer instead of an Infantry Officer. That would be the end of all my motivation - regardless of pay.
When he’s asked by someone as charismatic as RealityChuck, he does.
I presume they only do this (or something equally as severe) if there is a shortage of manpower in the category they are reassigning people to, am I right? Otherwise, it would seem that there would be many officers doing things in which they had no real experience.
