What the purpose/history behind the officer/enlisted division?
Why not simply lump everyone into a single, ranked hierarchy where a member does what someone above them tells them to do?
I’ve heard that officers are the “decision makers” but that doesn’t make sense to me. Doesn’t everyone in a military make decisions and tell others what to do (except privates, I suppose)?
What is a commission? Why is it significant?
Thanks all
Till someone more knowledgable comes along, I’m always heard it started back in the days where there was nobles and peasants. The nobles and geltlemen were the officers, and the peasants were the enlisted men. I think it has just continued with the officer/enlisted today because of tradition.
There was a question somewhere about how military ranks work and it referenced the odd ordering of ranks (can’t remember in what way) and the answer mentioned that the nobles often had an officer just below them to make sure things actually went smoothly.
I have thought about this more than a normal person ought to. After years of reflection, I have no solution, but some observations.
No military has managed to work for long without a distinction between officers and enlisted men. The Chinese gave it the good college try and the system re-arose long before it was officially reestablished. The old Red Army same way.
Next, the job of a junior officer is much the same as that of a senior NCO, with the single exception that the lieutenant is being groomed to command, while the sergeant is not.
Finally, being an NCO is much more fun than being an officer.
If you look at corporate culture, there is a pretty similar divide between blue collar, and white collar workers. While not usually as formalized as military structure, the class divide is seldom subtle. Even where manual labor is not involved, managers are in a different class than engineers or programmers.
There must be something about human nature that wants a division between those who decide what needs doing, and those who do the work.
It’s more of a principle of reality:
Labor DOES.
Managment does THROUGH OTHER PEOPLE.
(And woe betide the manager who forgets this!)
Any organization above a small size divides its people into three groups:
Management / commissioned officers, who decide policy.
Labor / enlisited personnel, who carry out the grunt-level tasks that implement the policy.
Team leads / non-commissioned officers, who do the scutwork of organizing the grunt-level tasks.
This distinction is more formal where there are labor unions.
Um…isn’t that what the rank system is? Everyone in each branch of the military has a rank and those of lower rank follow the orders of those of higher rank.
In many military organisations, in many ways, an NCO and an Officer may carry out virtually identical roles in their military function, NCOs work exclusively upon this, but officers also carry another role.
Officers are also national representatives, much like an ambassador although at a much lower level, and their duty is to reflect their nations policies and strategic thinking, this can be by their personal example, or in a much more direct way depending upon the circumstances.
You might say that a US NCO is a representative of the US, but only within their military remit, but the officer is expected to consider US policy and may end up making a significant differance to foreign policy - even if this is temporary or very localised.
Strategy - officer
Implementation - NCO
Most if, not all military, have systems to move NCOs to Officer levels but the role of Officer is such that you cannot afford to restrict yourself to those who have education up to skilled blue collar and then taken several years to work their way up, you also need people with University Honours degree education, and to achieve that you have to find a way of attracting such graduates. Graduates have spent their time in higher education, and as such they tend to have a higher starting age than lower ranks.
What I find interesting is that this distinction seems to be a universal and defining characteristic of modern militaries.
Many quasi-military organizations use similar rank structures, but, for instance, a police lieutenant or captain would have started out as a police officer and sergeant before being promoted to “officer” rank and its attendant management responsibilities.
Meanwhile, virtually every military worldwide seems to have two entry points, officer and enlisted, and though there is some crossing up (and the middle warrant level), most members advance up the chain they started in.
Likewise, in the US military at least, my impression is that many of the senior NCOs (and petty officers) are at least as qualified in all respects as the junior officers who “lead” them. A high percentage of our enlisted personnel have bachelors degrees, and quite a few have advanced degrees as well. It seems odd that an enlisted man who came in without a degree but through hard work and determination outside of his military duties earned one will still be outranked by a youngster with the identical degree who went through the ROTC program.
Because it works.
I don’t think there was any real attempt to eliminate officer/enlisted divisions in the Red Army after the it was formed from the Red Guard. Despite Trotsky’s efforts to eliminate class barriers, awaken the political consciousness of conscripts, et ceter, the command structure and NCO corps of the Red Army were largely drawn from the Imperial Russian Army. The Red Army was shattered by the bloody purges of the 1930s, with the NCO corps particularly damaged. As a result, the Soviet Army was always top-heavy with officers who often performed the duties that were nominally the responsibilities of NCOs in Western armies.
I’m not military, so my experience is second hand (from observation rather than immediate experience as one or the other), but I’d have to take issue with the former statement. The job of JOs is really to stand around and learn, and provide a link between the senior NCOs (who tell the enlisted men what to do and how to do it, often at elevated amplitude) and midlevel officers (captains and majors, or in the navy, lieutenants and lieutenant commanders). Typically (but not always) officers are management generalists, and a JO is not expected to know much of anything practical (very few are promoted from enlisted ranks), and instead mostly stands around confirming the orders of senior NCOs who oversee activities. A good JOs relies on his NCOs to do pretty much everything but hold his hand while going to the bathroom, and as the officer advances his direct contact with enlisted generally decreases, at least for command-oriented tracks. Officers on for officers on technical, medical, or specialist tracks this may be very different.
Technically speaking, only a commissioned officer (one whose authority is derived from a soveriegn authority and who is thus in the chain of command) can give orders, but as a practical matter the actual functions of a unit are controlled by its NCOs and the officer takes responsibility (for good and bad) of the results, which is where the whole “leadership” aspect comes in. In the British tradition (upon which the American military structure is based) commissioned officers are drawn from noble ranks, and soliders/seamen (who were frequently conscripted or impressed into service) had almost no opportunity to advance into these ranks, lacking peerage or land. Although there is no such explicit caste system in the United States, officers are almost exclusively drawn from the military academies and Reserve Officer Training Corps, whereas the modern British Army and Royal Navy make a concerted effort to commission from the ranks.
As a practical matter, even with a complete ignorance of insignia you can tell easily tell enlisted from officers these days by the fact that the grunts are alternatively working hard or sitting around making fart jokes, while the officers are constantly tapping away on their Blackberrys. 
Stranger
I just don’t see that as being the same divide at all. You’re making the error that “managers” equals “officers,” and “Labour” equals “enlisted men.”
But in the army, it’s quite often the case that the managers are enlisted men - in fact, a LOT of the managers are enlisted men, a very high percentage of them. And many, though not most, officers are doing tasks, not leading.
In most companies, exceptional workers can move into management. You’re a worker, then a lead hand, then a foreman, then a manager, then a senior manager, then a director, so on and so forth. You may be stopped at a certain point because of some lack of qualification but it’s one continuous line of succession. That’s not true of a real armed forces; they have TWO distinct lines of succession, and while one is nominally above the other there’s a lot of overlap.
A Chief Warrant Officer in the Canadian Forces is an enlisted member, not an officer, but s/he is immensely important. The CWO of a fully manned regiment is the military equivalent of the operations director of a fairly large factory. S/he is vasty more influential, important and is far better paid than a lieutenant. If such a person were to be “promoted” to lieutenant it would really be a massive demotion.
There are some specialist jobs that are always officers…pilots, doctors, lawyers and suchlike. Judging from reruns of MASH, even nurses are/were officers, which seems odd to me, since the arbitrary nurse/doctor divide seems so similar to the enlisted/officer divide.
Historically of course, this divide is due to the class system. Officers were aristocrats, and aristocrats always and at all times outranked commoners. So a 12 year old midshipman outranks a grizzled 50 year old sailing master. Of course, in this case, the main job of the aristocracy is fighting wars, or breeding more aristocrats, so a modern stereotypical effette snob aristocrat wouldn’t last very long.
The commoner works to provide goods and services, and the aristocrat fights other aristocrats for the right to confiscate those goods and services. It’s easy to understand when you realize that the aristocracy works exactly like the mafia.
When at boot camp, I had plenty of offers to go to OTCS (Officer Training Candidate School) but it was a bad time to offer this to me. All I wanted at the time was OUT. Things got better after basic. Ended up after 3 years as a Sgt. E-5.
Shoulda stayed in for 20. 
Officer here.
I once had a recruiter put it to me simply: Back in the ‘old days’, such as WWII and Korea, officers were more educated and expected to use that education as corporate management. Nowadays, with a good percentage of the Enlisted Corps earning their degrees like the Lieutenants, that former ‘educated versus worker’ line is blurred.
One of the big differences between the Officer Corps and Enlisted Corps is the authority of command. While anyone can lead troops, officers have the legal authority inherent in their commission to do so (originating from the President of the US). Thus, officers have a legal obligation and requirement to be upstanding folks and ensure that those under their command are abiding laws. To this point, the Officers and Enlisted will always be seperate.
And it’s often that an officer breaks the law, and thus gets him or herself into hot water. I think of Kelly Flynn for example. . .
Tripler
And I gotta quit posting. My fiancee tapped on my keyboard and submitted prematurely, and I think my 5 minutes is u . . .
Yes, I didn’t state that very clearly. I meant without the officer/enlisted distinction.
With the blurring of the line between officers and enlisted persons, is it common for conflict to arise between say a bright, young officer and a sergeant major who’s seen it all?
And now that I can post again. . . the American system evolved out of the British military rank system. The British Officers were granted their commissions ultimately from the King. Once we threw the redcoats out, we maintained a similar system except our “King” became an elected Executive.
Now, the Air Force tends to have officers act directly with enlisted on a daily basis. The Army and Marine Corps, from my experience, are very rank conscious, extending even down into the Soldier/Marine level to their respective NCOs.
One reason for this is the maintenance of the chain of command. The military rank structure as a whole cannot survive if there is no respect for rank, especially between officers and enlisted. Thus, the mental seperation between the two Corps is to eliminate any question on who is in charge and lawfully able to give orders, and who ain’t.
Tripler
Them’s my two cents. Here’s my 98 cents in change.
It is. And it happens often. However, it is usually resolved with tact on the part of the Sergeant Major/Chief Master Sergeant taking the young “butterbar” aside and politely explaining what should be done–the Sergeant mentors the Lieutenant. A good Lieutenant will always listen to an experienced NCO unless he/she knows something the NCO doesn’t, or has a damned good reason otherwise.
The road to success is paved with the bloody bodies of those Lieutenants who didn’t listen to the wisdom and experience of their NCOs.
Tripler
Hell, I’m still taking advice from my E-7.