In the Coast Guard, we are required to know the names of every grade and rank, of every service, for our service wide exams. Required, meaning if you want to do well on the test, that is. Not many folks get those questions right, it seems. Wasn’t an E4 in the AF a SGT at one time? Did that change?
As for the OP, Mr., Mrs. & Miss are reserved only for Warrant Officers, and Junior Officers (Enslime through Lieutenant Commander). They may also be called sir or ma’am. Commanders and Captains are addressed as such, or sir and ma’am, but not Mr, Mrs or Miss. Admirals are addressed as Admiral. Period.
In boot camp, only Company Commanders (DI’s) are called sir or ma’am, even though they are all enlisted. When I went through, they wore shoulder ropes for ID. Now, they have smokey hats.
Chief (works for a living) Chandeleur sends…
Excellent post, Jess. I have just a couple of comments.
I believe that only Sailors of ranks E-1 through E-3 may be properly addressed by their surname alone. Petty Officers (E-4 to E-6) should be addressed as “Petty Officer [Surname].” With practice, the title “Petty Officer” can be pronounced in only one syllable, though.
Sure sounds like fraternization to me.
I’ve no problem with addressing a Chief Petty Officer as “Chief,” and a Senior Chief Petty Officer as “Senior,” but addressing a Master Chief Petty Officer as “Master” just sounds weird. I always called them “Master Chief.”
FWIW, NROTC and Navy Academy midshipmen are referred to as “Midshipman [Surname].”
Address them as “Soldier” (Army), “Sailor” (Navy/Coast Guard), or “Marine” (USMC), presuming you know their service. For USAF, I’m not sure, but my guess is that “Airman” should work.
If they look at you funny, they’re probably an officer or senior enlisted. Apologize for not addressing them as such.
It’s really not similar at all. The Army and Marines wear them on their lapels while in BDUs, the Navy IIRC wears them on one sleeve, and the Air Force wears them on both sleeves. Flight suits? Look on the shoulders. If you see nothing, s/he’s enlisted. At that point, look on the nametag. It’ll have the rank spelled out, albeit abbreviated.
With us, it’s easy. Barring an Airman Basic (no stripes), if there’s no insignia on the sleeves, it’s an officer. In addition, the insignia should be centered on the front of the cap for officers.
Chandeleur, E-4 used to be an NCO slot called Buck Sergeant. That went away a while ago. Now it’s Senior Airman (which I am), but it’s not an NCO slot anymore. More’s the pity.
When I went through basic (USAF) in 1980 my DIs were addressed by rank-surname. They made it a point that they worked for a living so were not to be addressed as ‘Sir’. E1-E4 SrA were addressed as ‘Airman’, E4 Sgt - E8 were addressed as ‘Sergeant’, E9 was always addressed as ‘Chief’. Surname would be added if known. Officers were addressed as ‘Sir/Ma’am’ or rank-surname
Airman Doors, officers don’t wear rank insignia on the dress (busdriver) hat, do they? Back in my day enlisted had the encircled eagle, Jr. officers had the eagle without the circle around it, and Sr. officers had scrambled-eggs on their brim. Is that still how it is?
We don’t have the bus-driver hat anymore. Now it’s just the garrison cap (or flight cap, as it were). The officers have silver braid on the edges of their caps.
Well at least flight cap (I won’t bring up the more “colorful” name we had for that cap ;)) sounds the same as it was for me. What threw me the most was the change in MSgt insignia. That chevron on top will always make me think SMSgt.
Billdo:
For those Army (and NG) personnel I’ve seen in the new headgear, many officers wear their rank insignia superimposed on the unit flash on their berets. Since the unit flash itself can be various colors and patterns, sometimes that is not too clear, either, but it’s a good clue. If wearing the BDU utility cap or a helmet, they’d usually have insignia front-and-center (or even “SSG Blogowitz” written on the elastic band holding the helmet cover) (And I insist they should have kept the BDU cap for “field ops” and used the beret only in-garrison. That must be a bitch to wear ont he field on a hot day.)
As Doors mentions, after a fit of uniformity in the mid-80s, each service modified how they wear their insignia on the BDU pattern. And during the 80s and 90s almost everyone stopped wearing the “peaked cap” as an everyday headgear – already in the 80s Army enlisted just plain did not get it issued (you could buy it, but why bother?). I have seen new-pattern AF “peaked caps” but they seem to be limited to honor guards and top brass (and the insignia is different from the historical). Another trivia point: USAF’s E4 = 3 stripe = Sergeant was a direct descendant from the 7-grade enlisted rank structure of the WW2 Army; when the services went to 9 grades in the 50s, the Army and Marines inserted ranks at varying points of the scale, while the Air Force and Navy just added at the top. “Buck” 3-stripe SGT wound up at E5 for groundpounders but stayed E4 for flyboys. In the mid/late 80s the Air Force apparently found that did not fit their requirements any more, so they first did like the Army and for a while had simultaneous NCO/not-NCO grades at E4, and finally did away with the E4 NCO.
