# Why are militaries divided along officer/enlisted lines? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2007, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697 "2007-04-26T04:52:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/41 "2008-04-24T15:46:37Z")
Aside from which, the original “real men” were knights or other kinds skilled warriors. These guys could quite possibly kill a dozen peasants in a battle (but not all at once). They led because they were professionals in war, whereas the peasants types were just brought on for one campaign. The peasants might or might not know what they were doing. The pros, however, trained their whole lives for battle ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/42 "2008-04-24T16:01:07Z")
The OP made me think of this passage from Neal Stephenson’s _Cryptonomicon_ (no comment on accuracy, but it’s kinda funny). > [@](#): > > This “sir, yes sir” business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. Like a lot of others, Shaftoe had trouble with military etiquette at first. He soaked up quite a bit of it growing up in a military family, but living the life was a different matter. Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process. The extreme formality with which he addresses these officers carries an important subtext: your problem, sir, is deciding what you want me to do, and my problem, sir, is doing it. My gung-ho posture says that once you give the order I’m not going to bother you with any of the details–and your half of the bargain is you had better stay on your side of the line, sir, and not bother me with any of the chickenshit politics that you have to deal with for a living. The implied responsibility placed upon the officer’s shoulders by the subordinate’s unhesitating willingness to follow orders is a withering burden to any officer with half a brain, and Shaftoe has more than once seen seasoned noncoms reduce green lieutenants to quivering blobs simply by standing before them and agreeing, cheerfully, to carry out their orders. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/43 "2008-04-24T16:35:01Z")
[QUOTE=Jurph] Ever worked with anyone who graduated from the service academies, particularly the Naval Academy? On the whole, those expletive unprintables are SMART, commanding, direct and clear in their speech and deed. They will bust your balls, they are cool, they are confident, and to paraphrase a submarine officer friend of mine, they can walk through their vessel blindfolded naming and describing the purpose and function of any item they lay hands on. They are the ideal of what an officer should be: to the extent that military custom allows them to be “one of the guys” they blend in. To the extent that they must appear superhuman and worthy of absolute trust, they deliver. In your proposed partnering arrangement, where would you put such an officer, and who would you pair them with? [/QUOTE] Are there really more than five such people in the world? Don’t forget, someone who is confident, will always _look_ smart. If you find one such confindent man in 20, you’re lucky. If you find a very smart man in 20, you’re lucky too. If you want both in one person, you’ve got to search through 400. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/44 "2008-04-24T16:38:36Z")
I wish I had seen this thread earlier, because I’m having a lot of difficulty following it, and this difficulty could be solves by just defining some basic terms. For example, isn’t everyone an officer except the very bottom rank? Isn’t that what ranks are all about? I thought that everyone (except the very bottom and very top ranks) is somewhere on the spectrum of who you take orders from, and who you give orders to. If the OP presumes that there is some sort of clear line between the higher ranks and the lower ranks, can someone tell me which ranks are in which groups? Also: Am I correct that someone is considered “enlisted” even if he was drafted? Why would this be? Is it just a sort of very old Political Correctness, that we don’t want to embarrass him by point out that he is not serving voluntarily, so we pretend that he did enlist? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/45 "2008-04-24T16:57:32Z")
Historically, it started out as part of the general class system of society. Officers came from the aristocracy and the enlisted men were commoners. So the fifteen year old son of some local baron was an officer and outranked experienced veterans who had twenty years of military service. This system no longer reflects most of the societies in the world. But countries that have tried to replace this class-based military system with something else have found that the alternative systems don’t work as well. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/46 "2008-04-24T16:59:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Am I correct that someone is considered “enlisted” even if he was drafted? Why would this be? Is it just a sort of very old Political Correctness, that we don’t want to embarrass him by point out that he is not serving voluntarily, so we pretend that he did enlist? He was enlisted. It’s just in his case, he was enlisted by other people. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/47 "2008-04-24T16:59:52Z")
[QUOTE=Keeve] For example, isn’t everyone an officer except the very bottom rank? Isn’t that what ranks are all about? I thought that everyone (except the very bottom and very top ranks) is somewhere on the spectrum of who you take orders from, and who you give orders to. If the OP presumes that there is some sort of clear line between the higher ranks and the lower ranks, can someone tell me which ranks are in which groups? [/QUOTE] It is a little confusing for the uninitiated. The enlisted are the privates, corporals, specialists, and sergeants. They are called enlisted because essentially they are signed up under a contract for a fixed number of years, with certain terms. When that term expires, they either re-enlist or separate. Sergeants and higher are the enlisted leadership ranks, and they are called “non-commissioned officers”. A college degree is not required to enlist, though degrees are not unusual. Enlisted pay grades are E-1 to E-9. By contrast, officers do not enlist, they go through a somewhat different competitive process and are commissioned for life (or until they quit, or do something stupid). College degrees are required. Officer pay grades go up to O-10 IIRC. The lowest snotnose O-1 straight out of college outranks the most experienced E-9 with decades of services. This arrangement can be awkward sometimes, hence there are sometimes questions like this thread. It’s really not all that strange, you may as well ask why in the world we have managers and workers. Similar concept. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/48 "2008-04-24T17:00:34Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] He was enlisted. It’s just in his case, he was enlisted by other people. [/QUOTE] Okay, I can accept that. But then don’t officers enlist too? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/49 "2008-04-24T17:05:22Z")
[QUOTE=Keeve] Okay, I can accept that. But then don’t officers enlist too? [/QUOTE] No. Officers (that is, commissioned officers) receive commissions from the President. They do not enlist. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/50 "2008-04-24T17:16:13Z")
[QUOTE=robby] No. Officers (that is, commissioned officers) receive commissions from the President. They do not enlist. [/QUOTE] I think what you mean is that the act of applying to West Point (or equivalent) does not count as “enlisting”. (I wonder why.) Also that it is not enough to simply graduate from officer school, because there are additional steps which are referred to as “receiving a commission from the President”? Am I close? Where can I find a copy of “The Military For Dummies”? I really need one. (At least I know enough not to ask “What do the officers sell? How much commission do they make on it? 10%? 20%?”) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/51 "2008-04-24T17:18:20Z")
[QUOTE=Cosmic Relief] …By contrast, officers do not enlist, they go through a somewhat different competitive process and are commissioned for life (or until they quit, or do something stupid). [/QUOTE] Not necessarily. There is a shrinking pyramid as you go from the lower officer ranks to the upper ranks. Promotions get progressively more competitive as you go up. Once you fail to promote, you are either separated or forced to retire. You don’t have to do anything stupid to not get promoted, although that will certainly accomplish it, too. Unfortunately, the system has become so competitive that a zero-defect mentality has arisen. What this means is that any perceived deficiency may result in a failure to promote. The consequence of this is that you get an officer corps afraid to take any risks for fear of jeopardizing their promotion prospects. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/52 "2008-04-24T17:25:31Z")
[QUOTE=Keeve] I think what you mean is that the act of applying to West Point (or equivalent) does not count as “enlisting”. (I wonder why.) Also that it is not enough to simply graduate from officer school, because there are additional steps which are referred to as “receiving a commission from the President”? Am I close? Where can I find a copy of “The Military For Dummies”? I really need one. (At least I know enough not to ask “What do the officers sell? How much commission do they make on it? 10%? 20%?”) [/QUOTE] Well, actually, cadets and midshipmen who enter the service academies (and ROTC units) do enlist. That’s because if they wash out, the military can force them to complete a term of enlisted service to pay back the cost of their education. Once an officer graduates from a service academy or an ROTC unit, he/she receives their commission. This may be part of the graduation ceremony or a separate ceremony. Prior to accepting their commission, they are released from their enlistment. When I graduated from a civilian university as an NROTC (Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps) midshipman, I had my university graduation ceremony in the morning. Two hours later, I received my Navy commission in a separate ceremony. Officer candidates who already have college degrees can apply for Officer Candidate School (OCS). Once they complete this school, they receive their commissions. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/53 "2008-04-24T17:43:29Z")
[QUOTE=Keeve] I wish I had seen this thread earlier, because I’m having a lot of difficulty following it, and this difficulty could be solves by just defining some basic terms. For example, isn’t everyone an officer except the very bottom rank? Isn’t that what ranks are all about? I thought that everyone (except the very bottom and very top ranks) is somewhere on the spectrum of who you take orders from, and who you give orders to. If the OP presumes that there is some sort of clear line between the higher ranks and the lower ranks, can someone tell me which ranks are in which groups? [/QUOTE] For the U.S. Navy, the enlisted rates (not ranks) are E-1 to E-9: [http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy\_legacy\_hr.asp?id=260](http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=260) The commissioned officer ranks are O-1 to O-10: [http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy\_legacy\_hr.asp?id=266](http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=266) These two sequences constitutes the two main groups (officers and enlisted). Other branches (Army, Air Force, Marine Corps) have the same sequence (E-1 to E-9) and (O-1 to O-10), but with different names. For example, an O-4 is a Major in the U.S. Army, but a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy. Actually, there is one more group that fits in the middle: warrant officers. Warrant officers have a warrant from the Secretary of the Navy, as opposed to commissioned officers, who hold a commission from the President. There are relatively few warrant officers in the U.S. military. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/54 "2008-04-24T18:11:07Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] So, ideally, you’d get both types of ‘leaders’ to cooperate. I dunno if it’s as true now, but before you’d have the peasant-blood NCOs who were real men, who’d lead their troops to battle. And then you’d have snobby, dweeby nobles who made the decisions. [/QUOTE] But as \*\*smiling bandit \*\* points out, the feudal aristocrat is not and cannot be the modern stereoptyical effete snob aristocrat. Feudal aristocrats were professional warriors whose place in society was purely based on their ability to rob the peasants, and fight other aristocrats for the right to rob the peasants. Feudalism works exactly like the mafia, or more correctly, the mafia is a remnant of feudalism in the modern era. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/55 "2008-04-24T18:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=robby] Not necessarily. There is a shrinking pyramid as you go from the lower officer ranks to the upper ranks. Promotions get progressively more competitive as you go up. Once you fail to promote, you are either separated or forced to retire. You don’t have to do anything stupid to not get promoted, although that will certainly accomplish it, too. Unfortunately, the system has become so competitive that a zero-defect mentality has arisen. What this means is that any perceived deficiency may result in a failure to promote. The consequence of this is that you get an officer corps afraid to take any risks for fear of jeopardizing their promotion prospects. [/QUOTE] In my experience, the toughest transitions in the Army Officer Corps is usually from Captain to Major, and Colonel to General Officer. Lots of people get out after they reach Captain because they don’t want to be a “lifer”, but most that make Major will likely make Lt Colonel, and put in 20 years in order to receive retirement pay. There are TONS of retired Colonels, as many never make the general officer rank…politics, malaise, just wanting to put in “enough” years to fatten retirement pay, etc all conspire against Colonels. My Dad is a retired Army Major General. Talking to him about getting promoted to Brigadier General is interesting. He says that a lot of the politics in the process involve different Army branches (Armor, Artillery, Infantry, etc) “stacking the boards” with promtees in their respective fields, so you have most promotions going to those major branches within the Army. My Dad was in the Corps of Engineers and got passed over a couple times before he got promoted because these general officers on the promotion boards kept selecting appointees from the larger, more represented branches. I enlisted and served 5 years, FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/56 "2008-04-24T21:38:58Z")
Thanks, all! ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/57 "2008-04-24T22:45:26Z")
[QUOTE=Shamozzle] Yes, I didn’t state that very clearly. I meant without the officer/enlisted distinction. [/QUOTE] There is another element to it – yes, the senior staff noncoms are in effect the adjutants to commissioned officers at upper command levels and often have multiple degrees, but you want dual systems so that the folks who will one day be “senior executive” material are already on that track early in their career, while you also have highly-experienced “plant managers” who are towards the end of theirs at their side. Only a very small minority of the members of the service can manage to go from buck recruit to general/flag officer. BTW, police forces in the USA get away with a straight-up system of climbing through the ranks from trrper-sgt-lt-cpt because in their case, they basically appropriated a paramilitary rank structure just because it sounded good. Nothing prevents them from havign a system that went Patrolman, Pat.FC, Sr. Patrolman, Shift Leader, Station Chief, Asst. Inspector, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Supervisor Inspector, Commissioner. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/58 "2008-04-24T23:11:40Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi] 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. [/QUOTE] Isn’t it also true that the senior NCO usually is paid much more than a newly commissioned junior officer? Again, this is much like the white collar-blue collar divide that was common, where the hourly workers usually made much more than new college graduate executive trainees. ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/59 "2008-04-24T23:59:12Z")
Part of the confusion (to this lifetime civilian) in discussions like this seems to stem from the fact that the definitions of _enlistment_ and _commission_ are often presented in a somewhat circular manner. To those who have served it may be obvious, but those who have not often see things summed up like: Q: What’s an officer\*? A: Someone with a commission. Q: What’s a commission? A: It’s what officers have as the source of their command authority. And somewhat similarly for enlisted personnel & enlistment - they appear to be defined in terms of each other. Officers’ command authority, deriving from their commissions, is often described in a manner that makes it sound like NCO’s instructions to their underlings may be ignored with impunity - which I’m fairly certain is not the case. Is an NCO presumed to be speaking with the authority of an officer in his chain of command when he orders a private to dig a ditch? - - A further source of confusion in threads like this is that non-commissioned officers may or may not be “officers” depending on context! (Obviously, they are not _commissioned officers_ - by definition.) ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697/60 "2008-04-25T00:08:29Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Isn’t it also true that the senior NCO usually is paid much more than a newly commissioned junior officer? Again, this is much like the white collar-blue collar divide that was common, where the hourly workers usually made much more than new college graduate executive trainees. [/QUOTE] Here are some [pay rate tables](http://www.army.com/money/payrates.html). Going by these, a newly minted O-1 straight from college makes $2555.70 per month, while an E-7 with 10 years experience makes $3263.10 per month. O-6 with 20 years makes $8466.30, E-9 with 20 years makes $4990.50. It seems like there is not a gross disparity between pay and experience beween officer and enlisted until you get to the higher ranks, where command authority clearly brings in the bucks. I always found these tables interesting. I wonder who are the E-7’s with less than 2 years of service. I’m thinking nurses… contrary to a previous post, most nurses I knew were enlisted, except the ones who had masters’ degrees. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-militaries-divided-along-officer-enlisted-lines/401697.md?page=4)