# What exactly are Warrant Officers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-warrant-officers/260690>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 20, 2004, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-warrant-officers/260690 "2004-08-20T07:17:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\
**Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-warrant-officers/260690/21 "2004-08-21T16:10:34Z")

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> [@Alessan](#):
>
> I believe that a specialist in the U.S. military is any soldier who’s been promoted past private but hasn’t actually been given command over anything. Apparently you can’t be, say, a corporal unless you’re commanding a squad, because then you’d have a corporal commanding corporals and the who natural order of things would collapse.

This may be true for the U.S,. Army, but in the Marines, and Navy (not positive about Air Force) there is only one line of advancement at this level. An E-4 in the Marines is Corporal only (an NCO; just to confused things, a “Non Commissioned Officer”), and in the Navy one would be a 3rd Class Petty Officer. They can, would, and are put in leadership positions over other E-4s, depending on the unit.

At a HIGHER level, above Gunnery Sergeany, there can be a split at E-8 - First Sergeant and Master Sergeant (both E-8), and continuing up those two paths to Master Gunnery Sergeant and Sergeant Major at E-9.

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