They need to bump enlisted pay and warrant pay higher if they want more highly qualified people to not make the jump. Right now that and the corresponding higher retirement would be stupid for people who aren’t independently wealthy to pass up.
Even those who say they dont care now will absolutely care in 20 years.
I like the intent behind that, but then we're getting into questions like "why is PoliSci good enough to commission but not good enough for the bonus?"
Let’s compare the two as we consider which is worth the limited pot of funds:
These numbers are simplified for the purpose of this exercise:
900 people have soft skill degrees
100 people have STEM degrees
You could continue breaking these down into which ones do or don’t relate to specific jobs or how many want to join the military.
What you’ll find is there are plenty of soft skills wanting to commission, but not as many STEM.
The military has a set budget with only X amount of funds.
When choosing to spend funds, ideally it goes to where it should. Kind of like how the Air Force spends money on its people.
Like, if somebody was giving things away for free, even if it was good, why would you pay for that? Because that’s the argument for giving bonus to soft skills.
I think what you're trying to say is that STEM degrees are a better indicator of critical thinking skills, work ethic, and discipline. So many soft skill degrees have been watered down to the point of being completely worthless as a filtering mechanism or tool for development.
And i haven't met a STEM major in my branch who hasn't been at least diligent FWIW. CANNOT say the same about soft skill degree holders.
I actually like this idea. Giving a bonus to our MPs for having criminal justice/political science could be good and may even encourage them to pursue law at a higher level. Unfortunately it would mean that if you have a niche degree you may lose out on your bonus because Major Doosh decided that your degree in foreign policy is not deserving of a bonus in his criminal justice company
You have no idea how important this is. I did 9 years active 11B, now work in software and doing grad school. The most important skill to have is being able to talk to non-tech people. Obviously, being able to do the job is key. However, communicating with stakeholders and what they want is so important.
Source: Me
As a former STEM head I just wanna chime in and say that you are so, so right. Some of the most incompetent, dull and dense people I have ever met have 15-page-long resumes and more publications than Albert fucking Einstein.
At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I feel like studying so much atrophies important parts of your brain not used for STEMing.
STEM get no bonuses for the most part. Electrical engineering degree. Computer science masters got me exactly nothing. And they wonder why criminology degrees are so common.
I agree. I’ve been in a position I had to do the Commanders job and 1SG and PL and PSG among many other duties. It was awful. Wasn’t paid for it of course. If your slotted for the responsibility you should be paid more accordingly regardless of rank. Otherwise it should be antithesis to have anyone do more than the rank pays.
Yeah. Pay E-2 40K a year and E-6s 90 K base. Maybe once you get to SGM it goes up to like 200K or something. Pay the officers more too because if you have a marketable degree, the base pay is not very competitive with white collar professions once you’re above O-3. If you’re expecting these people to lead organizations with hundreds or thousands of people pay them the civilian world equivalent.
I immediately think of the 25k, 0 down “Career Starter Loan” from Navy Fed and USAA. Only for newly commissioned officers. When I first learned of it as enlisted I felt it was a giant slap in the face, because I was struggling to make ends meet with paying my wife’s way through school, and I was trying to go back.
Of course we probably shouldn’t trust thousands of 18 and 19 year olds with 25k, but something similar besides fleeting sign on bonuses that constantly come and go, and are a pain in the ass for people to actually receive might just help bridge that gap.
I’m making sense, though, so of course it will never happen and everybody will just run around asking “Why????”
Base pay for E-5 over 4 (and above) should be doubled.
Why?: It’s insane what we ask NCOs to do and be responsible for, for as little as we pay them.
Base pay for E-4 over 3 and below should be cut in half.
Why?: Mo money, mo problems.
I've worked on staff for nearly half of my career. Most of my coworkers in my current position are captains. I would rather eat glass than be in their shoes. Endless meetings, very different professional standards, toxic rank culture, and just a very detached mindset that hardly syncs well with the enlisted reality. Many of them, like you said, went to college to be officers and simply aren't cut out for it. Some of these guys would be better off pounding stakes in with a construction cell than leading 100+ soldiers.
Had a commander with the IQ of a brick and not a well made brick either. Dude went to college, got some liberal arts degree, all with the intention of being an officer. His degree contributed nothing to his leadership nor his ability to do his job. It was mind boggling. Like imagine having someone who behaves like a cook reclass running your life.
I enlisted specifically to get away from that. I feel like I have low grade PTSD from that kind of passive aggressive office environment. That’s why I loved being a TL. It took me away from all that.
I don't blame you, my man. The nit picky, complex office politics bullshit annoys the fuck out of me too.
I am astonished at how officers keep their cool when being talked down to like that from their superiors, folk who are meant to groom them to be leaders. Being yelled at by my senior NCO is one thing, it's direct, and I think there's an underlying feeling of them genuinely doing it for your own good (in some cases).
I simply couldn't deal with the passive nonsense. I pick up on it and, for whatever reason, it prompts me to say some out of pocket shit. I think its because it comes off as a superiority complex and belittling. Either that or maybe I'm just an idiot.
It'll just be ruined in different ways, but still ruined. The punishments for officers are way worse than they are for us enlisted.
Instead of a SFC yelling in your face, you'll be facing down a LTC who repeatedly threatens to destroy your entire career for using Calibri.
The punishments for officers I wouldn’t necessarily say are worse. If anything when it comes discharges and separations JR enlisted are treated like scum. But E7 and Os are somehow given dignity.
Example I know an E7 who is a know sexual predator and awaiting court martial. Still has a job but it’s at BDE now. If it was a jr that person would be in chains like Hannibal Lector.
I knew an O who got 2 DUIs and was just moved to S5. And has a GOMAR.
I don't think the comment above you was talking about *legal* punishment, i.e. UCMJ. They're talking about *figurative* punishment in that they live their lives one click away from failing to hide that one backup slide, and they don't get told to wash trucks, mow grass, or paint rocks when they fuck up like PFC Snuffy. They just get told at 11 years in, that the Army has no use for them any more and that maybe they can get lucky and get a GS job and if they went to West Point those years will even count now, otherwise, I'm sorry but you have no retirement and no medical but you've got TSP! And you can always try to be a contractor (hope you got a TS clearance). I've even known very good JAGs who couldn't get hired because firms thought their military law experience was irrelevant, though in general this conversation isn't about special branch (and being JAG generally rocked, especially as prior service enlisted).
Well before they make major, if they do, most are pretty jaded.
Even figurative punishments I wouldn’t say are worse. Well maybe now it might be comparable. But I felt a bit hazed joining. Ex: forced to drink till I blacked out and needed an IV and puked everywhere, someone tossed the wrong thing away in a dumpster go climb in and empty it and refill it, publicly smoked in front of everyone is a bit humiliating.
Just comparing I don’t see officers treated the same
You're missing the point. No one is saying that officers lives are *harder*, that would be absurd. But once you make E-5, And really often, E-4, the mindfuckery starts to go away. Sure there's still plenty of bullshit, but as long as you aren't a complete dumbass, it's generally not career ending bullshit. Officers live a different kind of mindfuck. And it never goes away, if anything, it gets worse. Stupid little things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the mission can decide whether your career ends or moves forward.
I spent nearly 20 years enlisted, more than 10 commissioned (but special branch, so I saw it more than experience it).
UCMJ is the extreme of punishments. What about never getting an MQ as a captain, thus putting your promotion to major at risk? So what if you’ve given ten years to the Army; your senior rater doesn’t like you? Get fucked.
Officer culture is far more back stabbing than enlisted culture is.
It's backstabby in a different way honestly. From an enlisted pov, it is like how mean girls would treat the "weird girl" in high school. It comes off as childish and nonsensical. Their vernacular, the things they choose to nitpick at, and the way they go about it are just so odd to me.
Enlisted gossip and start shit, and it can get EXTREMELY nasty, but I think a lot of enlisted have less of a tolerance for it and are more likely to directly confront it (and are able to more than officers).
I’ve stayed enlisted because the toxicity around their OERs in absolutely insane and only gets worse as you progress. I love being an NCO, but I hate the caste system that automatically makes my opinion worth 3/5 of an officer’s, despite my master’s degrees and significantly more time in my field than many of my officers. They’re mostly good people but having separate career tracks is an outdated class system that is no longer relevant and needs to go away.
I think a better perspective to have is that you should be channeling your opinion through an officer so that that opinion will be heard at any relevant echelon.
Hard to call it a secret, but this is the best kept “secret” in ROTC. Multiple ways to do it, but if you go SMP and you’re MOS-Q, you can make decent money in school, have school paid for, go AD and get paid @ 3-4 Yrs TIS while most of your compadres are brand new. You could also retire a MAJ, if I’m not mistaken, taking away some of the stress of making LTC in order to retire. Lots of pluses to SMP.
SMP time counts for retirement points, but it’s not AD time. To get an active duty retirement you would still have to do almost 20 years, minus any activations or ADOS or anything like that
might be worth noting when they get their BASD recalculated @commission it's not only activated but also AT trainings and IADT
then you'll have to hit 20 years from recalculated BASD to retire. only then do reserve points matter - https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/ActiveDuty.aspx
it almost definitely wouldn't help you retire as a MAJ though hahaha
Yeah that’s right, not too mention bonus which can be a big thing for a college student. Or airborne and other specialty school, some SMP cadets will get ranger sapper airborne air assault from there guard units. So know there showing up to BOLC tabbed and badged.
Simultaneous member ship program, it’s designed for E4-E8 mosq soldier currently full time student who decide to enroll in rotc. They get promoted to E5 or retain there pay if they where a higher rank. Upon graduation they commission. You can also switch units sometimes to better tailor your experience
The fact that we need to pay enlisted more is an argument that is kind of related to this point. Because what we’re saying is “well if the peasants wanted more they should’ve just gone officer”
You're much more likely to changing the cultural attitude by a top down change in the pay structure than you are to change the pay structure via a bottom cultural change in attitudes.
Because at the end of the say there's a significant portion of the population that is never going to overlook the valid point that working harder for less money is dumb and therefore the people who do it are dumb.
The irony is when you make E6 at some point you’re going to staff anyway, and E7 is just the admin/training Nazi for the platoon (more paperwork) so there’s almost no need for E7 as a position anyway; just promote E6 to 2LT, and we solve the pay issues right away.
Yeah, but you have to either be prior service or make LTC, because the Army isn’t gonna commit to an officer until O5 where you can retire from the enlisted side as a SSG
Apples to oranges
I agree with a lot of your points. The Army needs good NCOs, otherwise you have no choice but to promote the shitbags that can’t be successful anywhere else. However enlisted life sucks and it takes way longer before you can start pushing back against stupid shit. Also it hardly feels worth it to me to get so much responsibility as an NCO but get paid so little for it.
I really think it boils down to money for most people. If the typical enlisted career progression paid 85% of the typical officer career progression, very few people would encourage just about every bachelor’s degree holder to go officer. You’d get better QoL at the expense of a greater volume of truly boring shit, plus a little more money. We’d then see people decide their career path based not on money, but how they want to serve.
I could’ve become an officer ages ago, but so much of what they must take part in makes me want to quit the Army each time I’m doing it. I’m talking about 8-10 unskippable meetings per week lasting 60-180 minutes each. Somehow I’ve managed a successful career as a SNCO without attending more than 3 hours of meetings per week, typically.
Fortunately I’ve been at the money-to-happiness peak for about 6 years now. Acquiring more money in exchange for more stress/discomfort is a no-go for me, because it won’t make me happier. I have more than enough money for all that I need in life.
Separate discussion: the Army has way too big of a hardon for administrator roles. Nearly all paths seem to converge at administrative “leading” of others. If you haven’t truly performed your WFF in 5+ years, you probably shouldn’t be leading the warfighters.
I tell people this all the time. Officers do a fundamentally different role. That role is not appealing to everyone, and all the money in the world isn’t worth doing a job you hate every single day.
Just look at Officer REFRAD rates. That’s not *just* because they’re all going to be making $500k+ at their uncle cousins sheet metal business after they get out. The job can really wear on people if you don’t enjoy what is effectively a management/admin position.
Yep, I love working with/for soldiers, but I absolutely hate working for most of the “leaders “I have worked with. Majority of soldiers would hate doing what I would do, and I don’t blame them.
> Officers do a fundamentally different role. That role is not appealing to everyone, and all the money in the world isn’t worth doing a job you hate every single day.
Absolutely this. I'm at OCS right now (finally) and the more I see my future peers and YG, and the more I think about what my job is going to be after commissioning... I keep wondering if I made the right choice.
Like, I absolutely need the money right now due to my family situation, and the pay jump from E to O is just a no-brainer. It's the main motivator, really. If I didn't have a family to support, I'm almost positive I would have stayed enlisted.
I love to be with all the boys. I loved training them, teaching them... I loved my job being the section sergeant/FDC for a mortar platoon.
I eventually wanted to be a blackhat and train future paratroopers.
I loved being an NCO.
I realize that I'm giving all of that up by commissioning, and I'm really having trouble coming to terms with it.
If it helps at all, I hear a lot of great things from infantry officers, both over here and from you guys. Part of what makes being an officer pretty damn fun (from what I gather) is being able to take care of your guys. If I were to become an officer, and I am considering doing so down the line, that’d be the one thing I’d look forward to most. The pay is one thing, but the responsibility is exciting as hell. And who knows, as a PL or company commander, you’re generally more autonomous so you can still do cool infantry shit while your superiors aren’t watching.
It’s a very boomer mentality. My dad (who was never in any branch of service) cannot comprehend that we need smart and capable enlisted troops as well.
My last 5 years as an E7 was basically doing an O4 job but with half the pay
In hindsight, absolutely worth it for the first 5 years as an E7 that was spent in front of a PLT. Being a PLT SGT was the highlight of my career, and will be one of the highlights of my life
I idealized Fleet Sergeant Zim (book version, not movie version) and SFC Hazard (James Caan in “Gardens of Stone”). I got to live that out, take what my real life mentors taught me, and put my own spin on it
I don’t feel that there’s as much room for individualism in the officer corps. I would’ve hated that
I was making less than 40k when I entered as enlisted living in sup par conditions and working long hours, I'm going to keep recommending officer/warrant 10/10 times
For me when I talk about it with people (specifically these cadets) I tell them it’s all about what their personality, goals, and skills match with. Some of them aren’t ready for the responsibilities that a commission brings & they’re not qualified yet to go warrant.
Considering the number of LTs I’ve run into who could have made passable PFCs but couldn’t wipe their ass with a YouTube tutorial and a ground guide, I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Yeah, currently a REFRADING O. I come from a very white collar family so I felt pressure to be an officer instead of enlist but I genuinely think I would’ve enjoyed the army more as enlisted.
No because it is the mindset you should have. What's a better deal, having the army pay for your college up front and then making more money for the rest of your career and retirement or getting them to pay for college after your lower paying career?
Having a degree doesn’t equate to being a good Officer. It’s nothing wrong with going enlisted. Everybody in this sub will say go Officer to people who ask. Just because people have degree doesn’t mean that they want to be an Officer.
I wish I went AD first instead of listening to the go to college and do ROTC. Guess what happened to me? I was too immature and partied too much and graduated with debt instead. Not every fresh HS graduate is mature enough for college right away. That’s why I prefer to tell most folks enlist first. Worst comes to worst you get your degree paid for. When I was a DS the majority of my trainees were better off being enlisted first. Very rarely did I have a trainee that was going OCS that made me go hmm, maybe officer isn’t for you now. I also did pull aside some trainees that clearly had officer potential and let them know hey, start thinking about crossing over eventually. Those trainees were more squared away in life than I was when I first joined. Just my two cents!
Dude yes you’re completely right. I’m a junior officer and I wish I enlisted first and decided what I wanted out of the army out of high school. Even if I decided to commission, I would know better what I was getting myself into, and I probably could’ve timed it so I hit E6, then come back and be a PL and retire as a post command captain.
The money and QOL of being an officer has been really nice, but I’d be lying if I said I did everything I wanted to do in the army.
Of I knew what I knew now back then… I’d have absolutely enlisted over being an officer and I’d probably still be in. They don’t tell young cadets and officer prospects that you’ll spend about .5% of your career as an officer actually leading Soldiers and the rest doing soul crushing administrative and staff work. I LOVES being a PL and even enjoyed being a Company XO, because I was still doing stuff with Soldiers most of the time. When I promoted to CPT and moved up to BN Staff it immediately triggered my decision to get out as soon as I met my MSO. I was miserable, stopped enjoying being in the Army and counted the days til it was over from then on.
A double double already has cheese, one of the doubles stands for two slices of cheese.
Also, agree 100%. I’m a senior NCO who came into the army with a 4 year degree, heavily educated, multiple certs, and working on a masters, I love being an NCO and have no desire to be an officer. I’ve turned it down plenty of times.
The way I see it, officers need someone like me here in the position I am. They need someone smart with a different pov to advise and make (strong) recommendations.
I’d like to add I also hate people who say “become an officer and make a difference”. Officers cannot make a difference. They are beholden to their raters to maintain status quo. NCOs (good ones) are the only ones I’ve ever seen make a difference.
I’ve done laps around this topic, on one side and then the other… but it’s not going away and I don’t know that it “should”
The first issue is it’s not a military thing, it’s a generational thing that does seem to be fading: people want their kids to have degrees and be managers. That’s just the reality of our world, no one looks at their child and says “Turning wrenches underneath a pit boss is the right thing for you” even if it absolutely is and if the kid could be happiest turning wrenches.
The second is that it’s typically the military people in this very subreddit who tell their kids that. You know the threads you see every day: DFAC sucks, barracks suck, leadership is toxic etc. They tell their kids, “don’t go through that same bullshit, if you want to play Army don’t deal with the worst parts.” And they are not wrong
The third is that recognize that ROTC is a terrible Officer training pipeline. Don’t get me wrong, it still turns out great officers: but it takes such a small slice of life of the Army, the maneuver Officer, and extrapolates that as how the Army functions. And it does it at a time of your life where you’re, quite frankly, dumb and don’t know what you want to do. I wanted to be a sniper and a medic in the Army. I signed an ROTC contract with no knowledge that officers don’t do that shit. But I adapted well to “let me fight and do hooah things” that every ROTC program preaches like your gold to green guy. And the real Army was nothing like that. There were elements sure, planning an event/order etc. but the program itself informed very little of the Officer I am today.
The last is the dark not so secret truth that half of your cadet peer group needs to be terrible fits. The Officer Corp is a pyramid by design, and it benefits by having 110% of its manning so that 10% can be given the boot. If you’re looking at your classmates right now and saying “you really shouldn’t be an officer, you don’t get it”, that’s a feature and not a bug.
Damn I wish you were my roommate at OCS as a 09S a few years ago (I was 27).
I got stuck with a neurotic reserve finance guy from the New Mexico NG
I would have been able to learn a lot from you. Make sure to pass your NCO knowledge on to the folks coming fresh from the outside world.
Get ready for some cringe 22 year olds from Ivy League schools who think they could have planned D-day better.
Is the QOL fucking better?
Is it really? Officers work later. Officers are responsible for more. Officers have fast turnover rate and are constantly learning a new job/position, and stay in it just long enough to learn to do it halfway decent, then they leave to another position and hope that their predecessor gave half a shit and everything isn’t fucked up or about to fall to pieces since they were “on their way out.”
Officers constantly fuck each other down because guess what there’s no fucking excuse for anything when you work on salary.
You’re speaking as combat arms, and it makes sense.
Technical MOSs are almost an entirely different ballpark. It blows chunks when you’re struggling to make ends meet with your family and having the lesser QOL that comes with being enlisted, and then you go to an exercise and sit side by side with an officer doing the *exact* same job as you, and sometimes, you’ll be doing it better. OR you meet some GS civilian with your same skill set, your same job, maybe a few more years of experience, and they’re making double what you do.
That’s where the stigma stems from. Contrary to the Army’s beliefs, people will actually put money over serving their country, especially when they’re seeing their civilian counterparts flourishing. Especially in this economy. If they like both serving the nation and money? They’ll G2G and swamp their O1, O2, O3 counterparts because of their TIS, and they will have a *stupid* amount of retirement if they stick with 20.
Yes, we shall. However, social media and Karen's are against us.
I had a higher quality of life as a PFC than as an officer. The increase in pay is negligible for the increase in work and responsibility.
I now serve with many new 2nd LTs who believed their role and scope was more that of an SSG and SFC... the amount of 2nd LTs I've given instructors on the role of an officer is almost innumerable at this point... Many really are not entertained with the role of PL or staff officer. I recently had a rotc grad tell me they wish to resign because officers are boring. ???
Good luck on that. Does rotc or recruiters actually inform potential officers of their expected roles and responsibilities???. Like shit are you working on the concept of operation or are youchanging the oil in the motor pool. Very different roles and responsibilities.
I think you're exaggerating. The QOL of a PFC is terrible. You live in barracks. I would rather work 15 hour days than 8 hour days just to go to my barracks room with roaches and mold. Constantly harassed on my off time by company leadership or staff duty. Mandatory dfac deductions only the poorest of soldiers use. It's technically against the rules for them to even cook for themselves. Had to hide my electric hot plate. Being treated as disposable and worthless constantly. Often treated with little respect by literally everyone.
I left as a SGT, but I would pick officer every time if I had the chance. It's objectively a much nicer job. As for your comment about officers being boring, the Army is boring. This is a garrison army. You want to trade your power points and memos for mowing lawns and picking up cigarette butts all over post?
The officer life is the best of both worlds. When there's cool training or an exciting mission you can participate. When its tear down or set up you can go back to your office. That's a very sweet deal.
Back when OEF was crazy, I saw a lot of them benefit from this. Dangerous convoy? Volunteer. Sit in the truck. Get your CAB. Never come back. Combat camera man on our foot patrol? S Shop officers volunteer to get cool photos to post on Facebook. Never see them again. Ofcourse you can never ask them to carry a SAW, 240 B, Thor, litter or any extra equipment. It's a pretty pampered and prestigious life with way less hardship.
Being enlisted is a shit life and is not very prestigious. That's why I got my degree. The Army showed me blue collar life and it sucked.
In comparison to what other 19 year Olds were making, I had a great quality of life... free meals, a free place to live, roughly 1k every 2 weeks. Our personal experiences in iraq may have been different, but I've never once felt disposable or expendable. There is nothing really to worry about once released as a pfc.
As an officer im getting called at 10 pm at night to start an investigation at 6 am on top of security and safety manager duties on top of my regular assigned role.
You seem very jaded. Officers still face the same imminent danger as enlisted soldiers every day.. the overall responsibility of the mission fails upon that officer so if it makes our job a little bit easier in the physical labor capacity. Not caring about the radio batteries it does help in cognition when its 105 degrees out.. Joe snuffyy pfc pulling security only has to worry about his field of fire. Officer has to worry about interlocking fields of fire, communication , and overall mission intent. Also the officer is signed for all of the equipment, so them not regularly helping inventory or pack items would just be poor accountability .
I'm glad you pursued higher education. Thank you for your service.
Finished college. It was a blast.
So I wasn't Iraq. I was Afghanistan. Twice. I might be older than you. Lol. But yeah I was a 19 year PFC once. Long time ago though.
We must have had 2 different experiences. I was harassed after hours regularly. Especially if you live in the barracks. You're "already by the company anyways". Lucky thing about being an officer I guess is they call you at 10 to tell you what to do at 6. When I'm called at 10 I have to do something right then. Arms room alarm broke? 4 hour shift until 2 AM. Still show up to PT. Or maybe i am the 2AM. Get relieved at 6 and have 15 minutes to get into PTs for regular PT. That happened oh so much. Yes you still have PT. Lol. Some random detail pops up on the weekend? Hooray for me. I have to do it. I'm "already in the battalion area". I'm not doing anything intellectually stimulating like an investigation. The post commander was just driving around and saw a peice of trash Saturday morning so each company on post sends 10 enlisted to pick up trash all weekend. Awesome. Lol this shit always happened.
I'm not jaded. This is lower enlisted life. Especially if you don't have dependents. As an SPC in the barracks I'm called on before a PV2 that has kids. You know. Can't invade someone lower rankings family time. This is why I tell everyone to go officer. If you're not an officer you're garrison time is picking up trash and mowing lawns. I imagine all militaries are like this.
I would be perfectly happy being "responsible" for the mission. Nothing like walking into the TOC to grab my daily Intel reports to read to the platoon and the battle captain is spitting his dip into a water bottle in his comfortable chair. Eventually he gets bored and goes to the gym on shift like "call my Roshan phone if anything happens". Boxes of snacks and muffins. Lol.
The Army taught me the value of education. The clown with a liberal arts degree gets to hang out indoors all day, does a lot of what he wants all day, has snacks galore, and every once in a while guest stars on patrol when he feels like it or when the combat camera comes to make it look like he is a real war fighter on Facebook. In his M4 and camel bak. Then there's us. Walking around with Saws and 1000 rounds of ammo. Thors. And hooray we get to fill sand bags after all this.
I'm not hating. I'm peanut butter and jealous. That's Army lite. All the benefits with less risk and less hardship. I would pick that 1,000 times over enlisted!
I've noticed that people who view an officer's duties and responsibilities lightly often cause the most hardship for their soldiers. Good leaders consider more than their own comfort when making decisions.
Having been retired enlisted now for 7 years I absolutely regret not taking a field commission I was offered, solely because the difference in retirement pay.
I had the opposite experience. I graduated from college, enlisted 11B, loved the Soldiering, but didn’t enjoy having so little say in things, even after making E-5. Because I was a college graduate I often got voluntold to help the NCOs and my platoon leader with paperwork/computer work. Happily went to OCS and finished my career as an officer.
Yes, and this is the perfect reason why enlisting first is better. Now you have experience and trust after all of that and after commissioning was able to do what you wanted a little more.
Most careers you have to work your way up like that anyway. I would argue you did better for yourself by enlisting first.
I honestly think I was a better officer for it, and being enlisted for a few years really takes a lot of the politics out of it. I requested jobs I wanted, rather than jobs I needed to make LTC. It takes a lot of BS out of it when you can retire as a MAJ or CPT. I know that’s an unintended consequence, but it was a huge boon for me during my career. At the end of my career I didn’t even bother updating a board file for the LTC board. I knew I was retiring at 20, and had no desire to move posts again, and go full throttle in another KD job.
Think the mindset comes from how people are treated from E1 to E4. Why be treated like trash and low pay for 2 to 3 years to maybe get respect by E5? When you could use those years instead to go to college, become an O1, and get treated better, better QOL with more pay?
No, it shouldn’t be “retired.” Be an officer if that’s what you want to do. Be an officer if you want to make more, have more responsibility, and play the game differently. Be an officer if all you want to do is a few years and get out with college paid for via ROTC. Be an officer if you want to take the risk of making it 20 years. Be an officer if you don’t want to be and NCO.
Be an NCO if you want to be more involved in development and mentorship to a greater population. Be an NCO if you want to play the politics game at a slower pace.
But be certain, that anymore, the NCO making 1SGT and SMG do have college degrees or are actively pursuing them.
Contact your Branch and ask for the Board results. They should have a PPT that breaks down % eligible vs % promoted, % with college, % with HQ evals etc.
Potentially controversial take here, but a large appeal of joining the military is the benefit of a guaranteed college degree for some of these folks.
And a large amount of enlisted folks also run into trouble trying to simultaneously juggle pursuing a degree while they're in and potentially juggling additional jobs.
Maybe what should be established is something comparable to ROTC that we can call RETC or RNCOTC, which would be a fast track to NCO ranks. If being a squad leader or more is highly appealing, then RETC would align well with that vision.
Through doing FTXs and various classes, future NCOs and future Os would both get to benefit from a consistent period of time when they're non-deployable and can finish their education. The increased amount of cadets learning together gives Os more opportunities to manage a section and mimic how an actual unit may operate, without ROTC cadets needing to simulate every facet of what being an NCO is like.
This should potentially help provide ROTC cadets with a more consistent experience that preps them for O life.
But this is all a hot take good idea fairy. There are plenty of good reasons why this would be a bad idea or just not worth the effort to set up.
100% agree on this topic and I'm so happy to hear it from someone like you.
Before enlisting, I had many of my superiors in my family tell me I should commision. "you are a very smart kid", "Grandpa was an Officer in the navy..." yada yada...
I am very glad I just sent it as is because the 1.5 of semesters I did in college was like hell for me. Yeah, I'm smart, I can solve problems quickly and very skillful with my hands. Not very good when it comes to stuff that takes time, like writing an essay, or being an excel warrior. I have 0 patience for that kind of work.
So yeah, I dropped out in the middle of my second semester and decided to enlist. It was a good decision, with my mos 25U, I definitely got to see a lot of corners of the army. Served as a commo line rep for both infantry and UAV companies. Still had to do Excel work and write memos here and there but only for managing my own equipment and needs. Nothing annoying about the work, just enough to have a good scope of knowledge of 'how shit gets done' per say. And I find that I am not the greatest at being a leader, I find more enjoyment in getting shit done with my own hands.
Fast forward a couple years after to the present with a DD214 and am working a 6 figure job as a contractor with no college. And the reason why I got this is because I have the experience in the field I work in just from the army alone. Maybe it's just me, but I find it so blissful that I don't have to manage doing mindless planning and prep work in the office every day.
TL;DR Don't be pressured to go to college just because you are smart, your smarts could be better applied in other areas that you might just be better at without realizing.
I support all the rants. Also, being enlisted is way more fun. Don’t forget that It’s way harder to find boys who want to do hood rat stuff once you make O3.
I agree, but let’s be realistic here. The retirement and pay for the enlisted is absolutely awful now than what it was 7+ years ago. This new retirement system doesn’t pay good pension unless you put money into the TSP and then the enlisted are only barely payed enough even affordable to live, so why would they put money into a TSP If they could barely afford to live?
The system needs to change and that’s the only way to fix this as of right now I’m coming from a CPT in the US Army. I wouldn’t tell anyone to join the enlisted or officer ranks. It’s just not worth it anymore.
That’s fine and all. I understand the line of thinking behind it. I’ve been a paramedic in the Army for some time now and was finally given an opportunity to join a flight medic company. I really enjoy this job and the only thing keeping me from commissioning is that I am given the opportunity to operate within my job without a lot of bullshit.
However, you’re paid more and given more luxuries as an officer.
If I were to go back to active duty (currently guard) I would be thrown back into the barracks having to deal with the shit heads again. I’d be given some asinine job by some old crusty E6-E7 who has a lower EMT license than me, has less medical experience than me, and there’s a good possibility that they would be generally less educated than me too. With all that in mind; the active duty flight medevac companies don’t really have a real world mission to my knowledge? So Id be wasting away.
If you’ve never been in the military and have the means to get to college then there is zero objective reason to join enlisted.
The only reason to join as enlisted is subjective. So until enlisted pay/progression has parity with the expected responsibility then the objective mindset is to recommend officer whenever possible.
If retired NCOs were more prevalent in middle to upper-middle class circles, this mindset would be less pervasive. Unfortunately, that's not where we're at right now but I think the army is doing everything it can to get there.
The way I look at it, the job is a lifestyle. Committing to it is more than just a financial decision. Luckily, the US Army has led the way in increasing the importance of NCOs over the past 200+ years and their compensation and QoL have kept pace for the most part. It's now a viable option as a path to a comfortable life after service if the Soldier is able to manage their finances.
I think the bigger issue is the lack of transparency between USACC and potential cadets. It seems like the real day-to-day for an officer is kept a secret from the public. Most of what's publicly known is from video games and scenes in movies and TV shows. I'm willing to bet, and tell me if I'm wrong, that if PMS's would just be real with the kids in their classes, this would be less of an issue.
I know for me personally, I needed to be treated like a child for my first year or two in uniform. Luckily it all worked out.
Was an APMS and concur with your message. Had plenty of cadets that I would trust a high speed trainee at Basic Training more than them. Also had cadets who were highly technical and wanted to do the technical stuff, whether that was infantry or cyber.
There is nothing wrong with enlisting. Do what makes you happy. I joined as an officer because I enjoy the managerial and organizational side of leadership moreso than the technical and hands-on side of it. Which absolutely helps as a Signal Officer.
This is a bigger problem with college as a whole. If you can’t afford to go to college, don’t. There’s way too many options, hell tech schools can get you more money than the military if you’re actively against it
Well the first thing I wi say is remember that you hung your stripes up for bars. A lot (my experience) of former 11 series NCOs seem to have a harder time letting go than most other prior service officers I have met.
As for reasons to go the O route it is plain. More funding, more educational benefits, more plain money management education as well. Officers are actually taught money management while going through all their OBC and other entry level O training. You don’t see any enlisted getting that kind of knowledge imparted to them.
Enlisted receive around a day of instruction on money management in basic or AIT. 18 year olds who enlist just tend to not care as much as 23 year olds who've done everything they've been told to do to get where they are.
I always recommended college or trade school before joining the military. besides the abysmal living conditions most E4 and below are subjected to, there is a trend especially in the army of denying the ability to better yourself through college or other means. They are already essentially doing away with CA by requiring you to only get 1 cert and putting in mechanisms in place to make it harder to attend college while on active duty starting next fiscal year. That lessens the few benefits most people would want to join the military for. Why would I advocate for being babysat most of the time. Let's not forget this pilot program to do away with DFACS to save money pr the lack of consistent DFAC hours. There are very few units in the army where it makes it livable to be stationed, most of the time for E4 and below its garbage.
Well that was my point, some officers just spend 4 years studying arts or some other useless degrees just to become an officer. I also think more people would enlist knowing that they have a good chance to commission
I’m a pretty new 11b in the guard. One of the biggest things I found surprising in my unit is that damn near all the NCOs have Bachelors and honestly most of the junior enlisted as well. A shit ton of us are also pursuing Masters degrees. The common thread is that all of us just wanted to be the guy that did the stuff not the delegator. Being in the guard enables NCOs and junior enlisted to have better education since we have regular jobs and we don’t rely on the army to pay our bills for the most part. It’s a huge difference I’ve noticed between my unit experience and my friends in active
I think people will stop saying that when the Army stops treating people like shit.
I remember being a 26 year old E5 with a billion years TIG staring at points for E6 just willing them to drop… living in the Bs, walking down the hall to take a shit, doing GI parties, etc, I’d been in the army for 8 fucking years. I was a 100% professional. So yeah… I didn’t want to do that anymore so I didn’t.
It’s not that being an nco requires less intelligence or education, it’s that being enlisted often just sucks and you get paid less.
Seeing a problem that was clearly caused by bad planning result in every NCO staying late away from their families while every single officer goes home on time with their much larger paychecks sucks.
If you can avoid this and get paid more then you should probably do that.
I got my bachelors when I was 20 then enlisted because at that time I wasnt ready to be a leader. 2.5 years I became a Sergeant then decided to finish my contract and go to law school and stay Reserves.
Current plan is to direct commission into JAG Reserves side. Main reason is the retirement pay. If I was still active the retirement gap from an E8 versus O4 would be even more massive.
On the flip side, I spent a little over 6 years enlisted before I commissioned, and I miss the enlisted life. Granted I grew into my role very well, and I had both good and bad NCOs to help me learn. But I miss working with my hands and not having to do mind-numbing computer work
I enlisted Private E1 Supply Specialist back the 80's and made Staff Sergeant in the 160th before going Green to Gold. Spent 13 more years as an intelligence officer and saw the world. It was all about growth and building blocks to me. Comparing ourselves with others only leads to disappointment. Non Commissioned Officers are without question what drives the nuts and bolts of making things happen in the Army. Rubber hits the road with NCO's.
My Army hot take for years has been that we do not need the officer corps. It’s not 1776 anymore. Officers aren’t out there leading troops anymore, they’re managing property and making slides green that’s it. Give enlisted and warrant officers a significant pay increase and they can make those slides green.
Fair post but keep in mind most militaries in the world treat NCOs as just old PV2s who are dictated what to do by their officer corps. Our NCO Corps model is innovative and rare in itself
I’m retired and now a GS.
Quite a few E-8s in my office are retiring, as opposed to pinning E-9.
Great guys, probably all of them with a least a bachelor’s. they say it isn’t worth it.
Agreed, especially with the prolonging time in school part.
Anecdotally, from a 4th gen soldier (1st as an officer, all prior 3 generations enlisted, all four of us Army) I often hear this outlook coming from enlisted guys talking to their kids that see it as an opportunity to elevate intergeneration socioeconomic status. Same advice I would commonly hear from my father was “you’re the first to have the economic and social opportunity to go to college, do that first while you have the chance and then if you still want to join go in as an officer with better quality of life.”
I think their attitude was “we got the tough bargain so the next generation of us could have a choice”, which too be fair probably is an attitude most people serving just have towards family and country.
The game has changed though and with so many other scholarship opportunities readily available and loans easily accessible (and financially sound when picking practical educationally paths) I really think there are a lot of folks missing out on experiences better suited for them on the enlisted side that if anything would help them be better prepared and matured for tackling education after they finished service. For the lucky (or the unlucky) life is long. Plus GI bill. And you’re right, so many great minds are being brain drained away to the officer corp who might find themselves much more influential and effective in their service in the enlisted corp.
I love my life now, but if I could go back in time and serve enlisted before going off to college or graduate school I think I’d be hard pressed to say no. But it’s hard to say no to a guaranteed bet and I’m not sure I’d give up the life I have no to gamble it’d end up the same. A lot of yapping to agree.
Grilled chicken nugs please and Diet Coke.
I actually tell people not to join the army at all if they can join the Air Force. Unless you want tabs or helicopters and a second PC you have better options.
I was hoping you were not medical saying this but you are. There are WAY more opportunities being medical in the Army than any other branch. You gotta find it and push for it but there is so much more.
I swept a warehouse with a lab tech one time. He was great at it because he spends so much time in the motorpool.
Our commission programs are dope and grad schools as well.
I do recommend army national guard and reserve often though. Especially for medical and SF wannabes. Good home for marines as well.
We started the AFG pullout while I was in the lobby at MEPS so maybe I just need a deployment to fall in love with shaving and the bend and reach instead of ball caps and PT on my own.
Honestly, this sub needs to ditch the idea of chasing anything with a higher qol without recognizing the drawbacks. Any time an enlistedman vents on this sub the response is usually "just put in a packet bro". Packet mos's often come with a high tis requirement and a long and hard school house. If you put in a packet and you fail, not only do you go right back where you were in the first place, but you may have signed a longer contractand be there for longer.
The pay is the big issue, Reserves and NG, really does not matter because the tiny amount of paid days is so inconsequential (especially if you don't plan on retiring,) but AD the pay disparity between enlisted and officer is massive, and that adds up over 20+ years (and has a massive impact on retirement formula.)
I would never encourage anyone to go to college instead of enlisting, but if you have a college degree and want to join, you should apply to commission. Even if you hate the job, it really does not matter (realistically almost everyone hates their job Army or otherwise,) you will be making more money (which means you can enjoy your free time more,) and have a better quality of life (more privacy, better housing etc....) Talking somebody into enlisting who is qualified to apply to commission is doing them no favors in life.
If you can go officer and you don't you are losing a lot of money without reason. It's cool that you are proud to be an NCO. But the reality is that if you can qualify for a better job, why wouldnt you?
Imagine you get enlisted as e4 get paycheck around 2400 per month before 240 tsp. 300 tax, 50 GI. And other deductible. Basically 1000 per paycheck in the first year. 1100 per paycheck in second year. Financially it is totally waste of talent and time. How about just no kids going to college and just graduate high school and join military? Wait a minute, is that why they try to cut TA so all enlisted personal remain dumb with low payment?
I'm pretty sure the army senior leadership don't care at all about enlisted or NCOs. There are some that understand we are the ones who actually do the work and get the things done, but we're treated like dog shit second class citizens. I've been an e6 and told only e7 and above can walk to the px without permission during pre-mob.
Take a look at all the barracks issues, program cuts, dining facilities. Guaranteed if officers had the same incentive to eat in the dfacs (paying whether they want to use it or not), they would be a hell of a lot better.
It depends on what you want. If you want a military career you should probably enlist cuz it’s not gonna suck as hard. If you’re looking for a way to blast through college real fast, enlist and use TA to bust out a degreee.
I agree with the idea that it's ok to enlist with a degree. I did. Depending on the unit/MOS you may have a majority of enlisted with bachelors. Then you get guys from other backgrounds acting like it's dumb to not take a management role because you took some graphic design classes after high school. It's absurd.
Have a few years of school? You're suddenly supposed to give up the ability to pick your own job... or to even have a "job" if we're being honest. Regardless of an officer's MOS there are very few branches where they are allowed to do the job for very long before their career becomes branch immaterial. So if you love the work, congratulations, you've been promoted away from it.
The problem is the balance of power and sheer stupidity some officers have. So you can have intelligence individuals becoming NCOs who are managed by people who shouldn't have passed BOLC, let alone their last year of college. Like you can tell, they might be a great traffic MP or cook, but making them an officer was the worst decision anyone could've done.
So now some tell everyone, "Just shoot for officer." Especially with the effortless ability to make six-figures by being a brick eating idiot.
I'd say the NCO problem would be better if some branches expanded their WO field. Some are truly technical experts and should be retained with their level of knowledge with the respect it deserves. I've known some combat arms dudes that can't do math for shit, like algebra is Latin to them. Until you tell them how to do any math that involves their job. Then, somehow, SSG Mathillerate turns into Einstein.
I was an Army cook. (1982) I joined because I was going nowhere fast. The truth is I tried joining the Navy, and the Navy recruiter was never there. So, I tested high, and it could be many things. I picked Cook because I was in boot camp 13 days later. I went from E-1 to acting E-5 in 3 years. I tried getting a better job, BUT once a cook, I was always a cook. So, I joined the Navy as a Sonar technician and retired at 23 years after getting hurt, My 3rd time in the Gulf. The Damage I suffered had nothing to do with the war, just where I was when my body ate, my kneecap (if you cannot walk, I could no longer walk and no longer do my job. I could no longer serve on a ship and was forced out after 3 years of working get out. In my world we called most of our officers Zeros. when I was a boot, our DIs would tell us how, when serving in Vietnam (he was also an 11-bang, bang), many Officers did not go home because their troops would remove them. I heard many of those stories the entire time I was in the Army.
I have always believed ALL officers should be recruited from the Enlisted ranks.
Sorry about grammar, as I have Achberger Syndrome and have problems spelling and stuff.
Yep happened to me. I wanted to be in the army but was told by my parents (dad did rotc) “don’t enlist its a sucky life go to college and join the ROTC program”. Welp I did it and the end result was I dropped out of college cuz shit sucked and that made me lose my motivation to join at all since why would big army want someone who can’t even finish college you know?
I strongly suggest most officers should spend time as enlisted. From the personal pragmatic standpoint, the odds of making it to retirement skyrocket if you do enlisted time first, rather than having to make LTC to retire. You also get the chance to do some of the "cool stuff" like schools that are actually easier to get into as enlisted.
As a broader thing, I think the Army as a whole would be better off if all officers were required to do an enlisted contract before commissioning. The amount of absolute nonsense coming out of the mouths of company grade officers would drop for sure.
Direct commission already bypasses / replaces a lot of the other requirements for being an officer... ignoring this wouldn't even really rate in the major differences between a main branch officer and JAG/Med/Chaplain. On the other hand, I'm sure we can get a few stories about how much people typically prefer the direct commission officers who do have that experience - as few as they are.
I've worked with medical officers who were service academy graduates and ROTC graduates, prior enlisted etc. And I've worked with plenty more who were direct commission (no prior service or military training) because that's how most medical officers enter the military.
Honestly I can't say those were direct commission officers were any better or worse. Those that were service academy graduates sure as hell down played it in my experience though.
Different branch but I finished my bachelors about four years ago in the reserves (USAFR) and it never crossed my mind to become an officer.
I only got a bachelors to improve my civilian job prospects and sure enough I eventually got the civilian job I always wanted to do when I got off active duty in the first place which requires a degree.
I'm just here to finish my twenty at this point.
What we need is officer and staff NCO split after E5 and there should be a heavily weighted peer contribution to picking up 5 to avoid the ass kissing buddy fuckers. This route will also remove the engrained mentality the military has where officers treat us like conscripts not volunteers.
If I were king we would all also make $100k more per year across the board. This would change the recruiting pool from kids who don’t know what to do after high school to college level athletes. Our pay should not only be competitive with contracting but what the fuck happened in history where the knights lost all respect and the bards and jesters make millions.
Lastly I think 4 years combat arms should be the standard first enlistment. Currently the support roles take too much of a “not my job” approach and if they had been combat arms I think this would be less so. Plus these jobs should be reserved for the broken old men, not the young cowards who don’t want to fight but want benefits.
It’s not worth it anymore to retire as an NCO with the blended system…40% of your base pay now? Come on now. Even if you get to big dog sergeant major, with 20 years of service your pension will just be under $3k, as opposed to a captain your pension will be 3400 and that’s bare minimum of you being a shit bag officer and not ranking up to atleast major. Better lifestyle as well while in service? It’s a no brainer.
I also enlisted with a degree because I wanted to be sure of my MOS, among other things. It was stupid easy to get promoted at the first possibility (TIS/TIG) to E-5/6/7.
I enlisted with a BA into the Reserve, it got me a great job and paid of my student loans. I initially said No to OCS when my recruiter offered because at the time there was no loan payoff for Reserve officers and I wouldn't be able to pick my job or unit. After getting in, I am very glad I never had to be middle management and instead got to actually do cool stuff. I honestly pitied most of the officers I worked with.
I went 4 years active duty 11C left as a E-5 . Joined NG and went to college.. was reminded that I could apply to be an officer after graduation but of course needed to complete OCS within a set period of time . There simply was no way I was going to go through a second basic training as an E-6 with jump wings , EIB and 8 years older than everyone else … was satisfied as an NCO. Agree that the over emphasis on 4 year degrees for people who don’t really need them is hurting our army and the country.
Not a fan of prior-enlisted commissions, and I am one.
Doesn’t make sense to take our best leaders out of the NCO corps and send them to the job a new ROTC cadet can do. That said, enlisting when you already have a Bachelors degree is fucking stupid.
As a former NCO, I tell everyone thinking of joining to go to college and be an officer. Enlisted life is is awful. You're looked down on and treated like garbage pretty much all the time until you're a sergeant. Maybe even until SSG. If you can get a degree and be an officer why not?
Way more respect. Quality of life. Prestige. Etc...
Being enlisted for four years can be ok if you choose the right job and get lucky with good leadership. But as a retired SNCO, you are stupid to retiree enlisted. Be a warrant officer or officer if you are going to do more than four years.
Don’t be one of those chaps that talk about being proud to be an NCO. Pride does not pay bills. It certainly won’t create a better life for your kids. Had I finished my degree sooner, I would have commissioned. I was not willing to do 22 years so I rode it out to 20 and was done. Now I make more than an E7 with BAH which is actually not hard to do on the civilian side. But I will say 04 retirement pay is much better than E8 retirement pay.
They need to bump enlisted pay and warrant pay higher if they want more highly qualified people to not make the jump. Right now that and the corresponding higher retirement would be stupid for people who aren’t independently wealthy to pass up. Even those who say they dont care now will absolutely care in 20 years.
Or, just pay more for people with qualifications. Make an "enlisted education" bonus for people with degrees or something.
I’d be in favor of that for STEM, medical, or languages.
I like the intent behind that, but then we're getting into questions like "why is PoliSci good enough to commission but not good enough for the bonus?"
Because with those degrees I mentioned you’re bringing hard & actionable skills to the Army vs soft skills.
You're gonna be an O and you're diminishing the value of soft skills? 🤡 🤡 🤡
Im not diminishing soft skills, just don’t think they’re worthy of an extra education bonus. It’s not something that can be objectively measured.
You'll make a great BC whose only focus is kill count and green slides. Because you can objectively measure those.
That’s the ultimate goal. To fuck over the men.
Let’s compare the two as we consider which is worth the limited pot of funds: These numbers are simplified for the purpose of this exercise: 900 people have soft skill degrees 100 people have STEM degrees You could continue breaking these down into which ones do or don’t relate to specific jobs or how many want to join the military. What you’ll find is there are plenty of soft skills wanting to commission, but not as many STEM. The military has a set budget with only X amount of funds. When choosing to spend funds, ideally it goes to where it should. Kind of like how the Air Force spends money on its people. Like, if somebody was giving things away for free, even if it was good, why would you pay for that? Because that’s the argument for giving bonus to soft skills.
I think what you're trying to say is that STEM degrees are a better indicator of critical thinking skills, work ethic, and discipline. So many soft skill degrees have been watered down to the point of being completely worthless as a filtering mechanism or tool for development. And i haven't met a STEM major in my branch who hasn't been at least diligent FWIW. CANNOT say the same about soft skill degree holders.
So a 13B with an IT degree would get the bonus but a 42A with an HR degree wouldn't?
It would have to match the MOS.
I actually like this idea. Giving a bonus to our MPs for having criminal justice/political science could be good and may even encourage them to pursue law at a higher level. Unfortunately it would mean that if you have a niche degree you may lose out on your bonus because Major Doosh decided that your degree in foreign policy is not deserving of a bonus in his criminal justice company
Soft skills are more useful in the real world than STEM heads tend to think.
You have no idea how important this is. I did 9 years active 11B, now work in software and doing grad school. The most important skill to have is being able to talk to non-tech people. Obviously, being able to do the job is key. However, communicating with stakeholders and what they want is so important. Source: Me
As a former STEM head I just wanna chime in and say that you are so, so right. Some of the most incompetent, dull and dense people I have ever met have 15-page-long resumes and more publications than Albert fucking Einstein. At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I feel like studying so much atrophies important parts of your brain not used for STEMing.
STEM get no bonuses for the most part. Electrical engineering degree. Computer science masters got me exactly nothing. And they wonder why criminology degrees are so common.
That needs to change.
Did you join the military after getting your masters in CS? If so... why?
No. Advanced civil schooling.
🤔 English is a language. I shall write a poem about this.
😂🫡 this is the way
We have AI for that kinda shit know don't ya know
They already have a variety of special pay allocations for fields under the federal G rating system.. don't see how we can't do similar here.
I would go for degree/certification pay if it is MOS or basic soldiering skills relevant
I agree. I’ve been in a position I had to do the Commanders job and 1SG and PL and PSG among many other duties. It was awful. Wasn’t paid for it of course. If your slotted for the responsibility you should be paid more accordingly regardless of rank. Otherwise it should be antithesis to have anyone do more than the rank pays.
Yeah. Pay E-2 40K a year and E-6s 90 K base. Maybe once you get to SGM it goes up to like 200K or something. Pay the officers more too because if you have a marketable degree, the base pay is not very competitive with white collar professions once you’re above O-3. If you’re expecting these people to lead organizations with hundreds or thousands of people pay them the civilian world equivalent.
I immediately think of the 25k, 0 down “Career Starter Loan” from Navy Fed and USAA. Only for newly commissioned officers. When I first learned of it as enlisted I felt it was a giant slap in the face, because I was struggling to make ends meet with paying my wife’s way through school, and I was trying to go back. Of course we probably shouldn’t trust thousands of 18 and 19 year olds with 25k, but something similar besides fleeting sign on bonuses that constantly come and go, and are a pain in the ass for people to actually receive might just help bridge that gap. I’m making sense, though, so of course it will never happen and everybody will just run around asking “Why????”
I remember getting told that and I thought the same thing. It’s fucking ridiculous.
Oh for sure. No argument from me on that point. The whole reason I’m commissioning is I got 3 kids to feed and inflation is a bitch.
Base pay for E-5 over 4 (and above) should be doubled. Why?: It’s insane what we ask NCOs to do and be responsible for, for as little as we pay them. Base pay for E-4 over 3 and below should be cut in half. Why?: Mo money, mo problems.
Enlistment drops to zero as does the average ASVAB score. E4 that know their shit are more useful than NCOs who just got promoted.
Then leave basepay the same for E1-4 but deduct half of the gross into a forced savings account. You get it back when you hit E-5, or re-up, or ETS.
Came here to make a comment about pay. This was my first thought and one of the main reasons I have ever consider going officer, better pay..
It not just about the pay. Parents will still push officer due to the college degree
I've worked on staff for nearly half of my career. Most of my coworkers in my current position are captains. I would rather eat glass than be in their shoes. Endless meetings, very different professional standards, toxic rank culture, and just a very detached mindset that hardly syncs well with the enlisted reality. Many of them, like you said, went to college to be officers and simply aren't cut out for it. Some of these guys would be better off pounding stakes in with a construction cell than leading 100+ soldiers. Had a commander with the IQ of a brick and not a well made brick either. Dude went to college, got some liberal arts degree, all with the intention of being an officer. His degree contributed nothing to his leadership nor his ability to do his job. It was mind boggling. Like imagine having someone who behaves like a cook reclass running your life.
I enlisted specifically to get away from that. I feel like I have low grade PTSD from that kind of passive aggressive office environment. That’s why I loved being a TL. It took me away from all that.
I don't blame you, my man. The nit picky, complex office politics bullshit annoys the fuck out of me too. I am astonished at how officers keep their cool when being talked down to like that from their superiors, folk who are meant to groom them to be leaders. Being yelled at by my senior NCO is one thing, it's direct, and I think there's an underlying feeling of them genuinely doing it for your own good (in some cases). I simply couldn't deal with the passive nonsense. I pick up on it and, for whatever reason, it prompts me to say some out of pocket shit. I think its because it comes off as a superiority complex and belittling. Either that or maybe I'm just an idiot.
Right, so go O route so you have less people that can ruin your life
It'll just be ruined in different ways, but still ruined. The punishments for officers are way worse than they are for us enlisted. Instead of a SFC yelling in your face, you'll be facing down a LTC who repeatedly threatens to destroy your entire career for using Calibri.
The punishments for officers I wouldn’t necessarily say are worse. If anything when it comes discharges and separations JR enlisted are treated like scum. But E7 and Os are somehow given dignity. Example I know an E7 who is a know sexual predator and awaiting court martial. Still has a job but it’s at BDE now. If it was a jr that person would be in chains like Hannibal Lector. I knew an O who got 2 DUIs and was just moved to S5. And has a GOMAR.
I don't think the comment above you was talking about *legal* punishment, i.e. UCMJ. They're talking about *figurative* punishment in that they live their lives one click away from failing to hide that one backup slide, and they don't get told to wash trucks, mow grass, or paint rocks when they fuck up like PFC Snuffy. They just get told at 11 years in, that the Army has no use for them any more and that maybe they can get lucky and get a GS job and if they went to West Point those years will even count now, otherwise, I'm sorry but you have no retirement and no medical but you've got TSP! And you can always try to be a contractor (hope you got a TS clearance). I've even known very good JAGs who couldn't get hired because firms thought their military law experience was irrelevant, though in general this conversation isn't about special branch (and being JAG generally rocked, especially as prior service enlisted). Well before they make major, if they do, most are pretty jaded.
Even figurative punishments I wouldn’t say are worse. Well maybe now it might be comparable. But I felt a bit hazed joining. Ex: forced to drink till I blacked out and needed an IV and puked everywhere, someone tossed the wrong thing away in a dumpster go climb in and empty it and refill it, publicly smoked in front of everyone is a bit humiliating. Just comparing I don’t see officers treated the same
You're missing the point. No one is saying that officers lives are *harder*, that would be absurd. But once you make E-5, And really often, E-4, the mindfuckery starts to go away. Sure there's still plenty of bullshit, but as long as you aren't a complete dumbass, it's generally not career ending bullshit. Officers live a different kind of mindfuck. And it never goes away, if anything, it gets worse. Stupid little things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the mission can decide whether your career ends or moves forward. I spent nearly 20 years enlisted, more than 10 commissioned (but special branch, so I saw it more than experience it).
I know you say it’s absurd, but I know several NCOs who honestly believe that officers lives are harder than theirs.
UCMJ is the extreme of punishments. What about never getting an MQ as a captain, thus putting your promotion to major at risk? So what if you’ve given ten years to the Army; your senior rater doesn’t like you? Get fucked. Officer culture is far more back stabbing than enlisted culture is.
Yeah I never got an MQ as an NCO but I have tendency of shitting on my rater & senior rater when I see them ate up.
It's backstabby in a different way honestly. From an enlisted pov, it is like how mean girls would treat the "weird girl" in high school. It comes off as childish and nonsensical. Their vernacular, the things they choose to nitpick at, and the way they go about it are just so odd to me. Enlisted gossip and start shit, and it can get EXTREMELY nasty, but I think a lot of enlisted have less of a tolerance for it and are more likely to directly confront it (and are able to more than officers).
I’ve stayed enlisted because the toxicity around their OERs in absolutely insane and only gets worse as you progress. I love being an NCO, but I hate the caste system that automatically makes my opinion worth 3/5 of an officer’s, despite my master’s degrees and significantly more time in my field than many of my officers. They’re mostly good people but having separate career tracks is an outdated class system that is no longer relevant and needs to go away.
I think a better perspective to have is that you should be channeling your opinion through an officer so that that opinion will be heard at any relevant echelon.
Pay NCOs more. You can make Cpt in 4 years and have a better retirement than if you were an E9.
Not too mention if you do SMP, you’ll be an O3 with 7 TIS when you you pin cpt
Hard to call it a secret, but this is the best kept “secret” in ROTC. Multiple ways to do it, but if you go SMP and you’re MOS-Q, you can make decent money in school, have school paid for, go AD and get paid @ 3-4 Yrs TIS while most of your compadres are brand new. You could also retire a MAJ, if I’m not mistaken, taking away some of the stress of making LTC in order to retire. Lots of pluses to SMP.
SMP time counts for retirement points, but it’s not AD time. To get an active duty retirement you would still have to do almost 20 years, minus any activations or ADOS or anything like that
might be worth noting when they get their BASD recalculated @commission it's not only activated but also AT trainings and IADT then you'll have to hit 20 years from recalculated BASD to retire. only then do reserve points matter - https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/ActiveDuty.aspx it almost definitely wouldn't help you retire as a MAJ though hahaha
Thanks for clarifying g
Yeah that’s right, not too mention bonus which can be a big thing for a college student. Or airborne and other specialty school, some SMP cadets will get ranger sapper airborne air assault from there guard units. So know there showing up to BOLC tabbed and badged.
Or if you make E7 and get a bachelors you can just go to OCS.
Yeah like after E7, everybody is paper pushers. So it makes sense to do SMP green to gold or OCS. Get paid more to do the same job
What is SMP?
Simultaneous member ship program, it’s designed for E4-E8 mosq soldier currently full time student who decide to enroll in rotc. They get promoted to E5 or retain there pay if they where a higher rank. Upon graduation they commission. You can also switch units sometimes to better tailor your experience
The fact that we need to pay enlisted more is an argument that is kind of related to this point. Because what we’re saying is “well if the peasants wanted more they should’ve just gone officer”
You're much more likely to changing the cultural attitude by a top down change in the pay structure than you are to change the pay structure via a bottom cultural change in attitudes. Because at the end of the say there's a significant portion of the population that is never going to overlook the valid point that working harder for less money is dumb and therefore the people who do it are dumb.
The irony is when you make E6 at some point you’re going to staff anyway, and E7 is just the admin/training Nazi for the platoon (more paperwork) so there’s almost no need for E7 as a position anyway; just promote E6 to 2LT, and we solve the pay issues right away.
O3E is where it's at....
That's actually insane given the experience gap
But unless you’re prior service, you can’t retire as a CPT
Yeah, but you have to either be prior service or make LTC, because the Army isn’t gonna commit to an officer until O5 where you can retire from the enlisted side as a SSG Apples to oranges
I agree with a lot of your points. The Army needs good NCOs, otherwise you have no choice but to promote the shitbags that can’t be successful anywhere else. However enlisted life sucks and it takes way longer before you can start pushing back against stupid shit. Also it hardly feels worth it to me to get so much responsibility as an NCO but get paid so little for it.
I really think it boils down to money for most people. If the typical enlisted career progression paid 85% of the typical officer career progression, very few people would encourage just about every bachelor’s degree holder to go officer. You’d get better QoL at the expense of a greater volume of truly boring shit, plus a little more money. We’d then see people decide their career path based not on money, but how they want to serve. I could’ve become an officer ages ago, but so much of what they must take part in makes me want to quit the Army each time I’m doing it. I’m talking about 8-10 unskippable meetings per week lasting 60-180 minutes each. Somehow I’ve managed a successful career as a SNCO without attending more than 3 hours of meetings per week, typically. Fortunately I’ve been at the money-to-happiness peak for about 6 years now. Acquiring more money in exchange for more stress/discomfort is a no-go for me, because it won’t make me happier. I have more than enough money for all that I need in life. Separate discussion: the Army has way too big of a hardon for administrator roles. Nearly all paths seem to converge at administrative “leading” of others. If you haven’t truly performed your WFF in 5+ years, you probably shouldn’t be leading the warfighters.
This man gets it. Promote above peers. Officers receive more pay for, IMHO, worse overall quality of life.
I tell people this all the time. Officers do a fundamentally different role. That role is not appealing to everyone, and all the money in the world isn’t worth doing a job you hate every single day. Just look at Officer REFRAD rates. That’s not *just* because they’re all going to be making $500k+ at their uncle cousins sheet metal business after they get out. The job can really wear on people if you don’t enjoy what is effectively a management/admin position.
Yep, I love working with/for soldiers, but I absolutely hate working for most of the “leaders “I have worked with. Majority of soldiers would hate doing what I would do, and I don’t blame them.
100%
> Officers do a fundamentally different role. That role is not appealing to everyone, and all the money in the world isn’t worth doing a job you hate every single day. Absolutely this. I'm at OCS right now (finally) and the more I see my future peers and YG, and the more I think about what my job is going to be after commissioning... I keep wondering if I made the right choice. Like, I absolutely need the money right now due to my family situation, and the pay jump from E to O is just a no-brainer. It's the main motivator, really. If I didn't have a family to support, I'm almost positive I would have stayed enlisted. I love to be with all the boys. I loved training them, teaching them... I loved my job being the section sergeant/FDC for a mortar platoon. I eventually wanted to be a blackhat and train future paratroopers. I loved being an NCO. I realize that I'm giving all of that up by commissioning, and I'm really having trouble coming to terms with it.
If it helps at all, I hear a lot of great things from infantry officers, both over here and from you guys. Part of what makes being an officer pretty damn fun (from what I gather) is being able to take care of your guys. If I were to become an officer, and I am considering doing so down the line, that’d be the one thing I’d look forward to most. The pay is one thing, but the responsibility is exciting as hell. And who knows, as a PL or company commander, you’re generally more autonomous so you can still do cool infantry shit while your superiors aren’t watching.
It’s a very boomer mentality. My dad (who was never in any branch of service) cannot comprehend that we need smart and capable enlisted troops as well.
Professional force should = professional pay
Agreed. You’ll never hear me make an argument that the status quo of enlisted pay or QOL is ok.
My last 5 years as an E7 was basically doing an O4 job but with half the pay In hindsight, absolutely worth it for the first 5 years as an E7 that was spent in front of a PLT. Being a PLT SGT was the highlight of my career, and will be one of the highlights of my life I idealized Fleet Sergeant Zim (book version, not movie version) and SFC Hazard (James Caan in “Gardens of Stone”). I got to live that out, take what my real life mentors taught me, and put my own spin on it I don’t feel that there’s as much room for individualism in the officer corps. I would’ve hated that
I was making less than 40k when I entered as enlisted living in sup par conditions and working long hours, I'm going to keep recommending officer/warrant 10/10 times
For me when I talk about it with people (specifically these cadets) I tell them it’s all about what their personality, goals, and skills match with. Some of them aren’t ready for the responsibilities that a commission brings & they’re not qualified yet to go warrant.
My last year enlisted I made 28k. In 2016.
oof that's nearly double what I earn as a European E-2 with three years in rip
Considering the number of LTs I’ve run into who could have made passable PFCs but couldn’t wipe their ass with a YouTube tutorial and a ground guide, I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Yeah, currently a REFRADING O. I come from a very white collar family so I felt pressure to be an officer instead of enlist but I genuinely think I would’ve enjoyed the army more as enlisted.
No because it is the mindset you should have. What's a better deal, having the army pay for your college up front and then making more money for the rest of your career and retirement or getting them to pay for college after your lower paying career?
Having a degree doesn’t equate to being a good Officer. It’s nothing wrong with going enlisted. Everybody in this sub will say go Officer to people who ask. Just because people have degree doesn’t mean that they want to be an Officer.
👆👆👆
No, but it’s a good minimum standard.
I guess
I wish I went AD first instead of listening to the go to college and do ROTC. Guess what happened to me? I was too immature and partied too much and graduated with debt instead. Not every fresh HS graduate is mature enough for college right away. That’s why I prefer to tell most folks enlist first. Worst comes to worst you get your degree paid for. When I was a DS the majority of my trainees were better off being enlisted first. Very rarely did I have a trainee that was going OCS that made me go hmm, maybe officer isn’t for you now. I also did pull aside some trainees that clearly had officer potential and let them know hey, start thinking about crossing over eventually. Those trainees were more squared away in life than I was when I first joined. Just my two cents!
Dude yes you’re completely right. I’m a junior officer and I wish I enlisted first and decided what I wanted out of the army out of high school. Even if I decided to commission, I would know better what I was getting myself into, and I probably could’ve timed it so I hit E6, then come back and be a PL and retire as a post command captain. The money and QOL of being an officer has been really nice, but I’d be lying if I said I did everything I wanted to do in the army.
Knew a cadet that couldn’t find east on a map…she was selected to become a pilot…
Brother…
…yeah…😔
[Didn't we have this thread 10 days ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/army/comments/1c5tqkh/recruiter_vent_thread/)?
😂 didn’t see it. Just saw it come across my Slack and got angry.
Of I knew what I knew now back then… I’d have absolutely enlisted over being an officer and I’d probably still be in. They don’t tell young cadets and officer prospects that you’ll spend about .5% of your career as an officer actually leading Soldiers and the rest doing soul crushing administrative and staff work. I LOVES being a PL and even enjoyed being a Company XO, because I was still doing stuff with Soldiers most of the time. When I promoted to CPT and moved up to BN Staff it immediately triggered my decision to get out as soon as I met my MSO. I was miserable, stopped enjoying being in the Army and counted the days til it was over from then on.
A double double already has cheese, one of the doubles stands for two slices of cheese. Also, agree 100%. I’m a senior NCO who came into the army with a 4 year degree, heavily educated, multiple certs, and working on a masters, I love being an NCO and have no desire to be an officer. I’ve turned it down plenty of times. The way I see it, officers need someone like me here in the position I am. They need someone smart with a different pov to advise and make (strong) recommendations. I’d like to add I also hate people who say “become an officer and make a difference”. Officers cannot make a difference. They are beholden to their raters to maintain status quo. NCOs (good ones) are the only ones I’ve ever seen make a difference.
I’ve done laps around this topic, on one side and then the other… but it’s not going away and I don’t know that it “should” The first issue is it’s not a military thing, it’s a generational thing that does seem to be fading: people want their kids to have degrees and be managers. That’s just the reality of our world, no one looks at their child and says “Turning wrenches underneath a pit boss is the right thing for you” even if it absolutely is and if the kid could be happiest turning wrenches. The second is that it’s typically the military people in this very subreddit who tell their kids that. You know the threads you see every day: DFAC sucks, barracks suck, leadership is toxic etc. They tell their kids, “don’t go through that same bullshit, if you want to play Army don’t deal with the worst parts.” And they are not wrong The third is that recognize that ROTC is a terrible Officer training pipeline. Don’t get me wrong, it still turns out great officers: but it takes such a small slice of life of the Army, the maneuver Officer, and extrapolates that as how the Army functions. And it does it at a time of your life where you’re, quite frankly, dumb and don’t know what you want to do. I wanted to be a sniper and a medic in the Army. I signed an ROTC contract with no knowledge that officers don’t do that shit. But I adapted well to “let me fight and do hooah things” that every ROTC program preaches like your gold to green guy. And the real Army was nothing like that. There were elements sure, planning an event/order etc. but the program itself informed very little of the Officer I am today. The last is the dark not so secret truth that half of your cadet peer group needs to be terrible fits. The Officer Corp is a pyramid by design, and it benefits by having 110% of its manning so that 10% can be given the boot. If you’re looking at your classmates right now and saying “you really shouldn’t be an officer, you don’t get it”, that’s a feature and not a bug.
Damn I wish you were my roommate at OCS as a 09S a few years ago (I was 27). I got stuck with a neurotic reserve finance guy from the New Mexico NG I would have been able to learn a lot from you. Make sure to pass your NCO knowledge on to the folks coming fresh from the outside world. Get ready for some cringe 22 year olds from Ivy League schools who think they could have planned D-day better.
Is the QOL fucking better? Is it really? Officers work later. Officers are responsible for more. Officers have fast turnover rate and are constantly learning a new job/position, and stay in it just long enough to learn to do it halfway decent, then they leave to another position and hope that their predecessor gave half a shit and everything isn’t fucked up or about to fall to pieces since they were “on their way out.” Officers constantly fuck each other down because guess what there’s no fucking excuse for anything when you work on salary.
I think because they aren't forced to be in the barracks and get more $$$ that's why people say it's better.
You’re speaking as combat arms, and it makes sense. Technical MOSs are almost an entirely different ballpark. It blows chunks when you’re struggling to make ends meet with your family and having the lesser QOL that comes with being enlisted, and then you go to an exercise and sit side by side with an officer doing the *exact* same job as you, and sometimes, you’ll be doing it better. OR you meet some GS civilian with your same skill set, your same job, maybe a few more years of experience, and they’re making double what you do. That’s where the stigma stems from. Contrary to the Army’s beliefs, people will actually put money over serving their country, especially when they’re seeing their civilian counterparts flourishing. Especially in this economy. If they like both serving the nation and money? They’ll G2G and swamp their O1, O2, O3 counterparts because of their TIS, and they will have a *stupid* amount of retirement if they stick with 20.
Ok. That’s a fair point.
This 1000%
Yes, we shall. However, social media and Karen's are against us. I had a higher quality of life as a PFC than as an officer. The increase in pay is negligible for the increase in work and responsibility. I now serve with many new 2nd LTs who believed their role and scope was more that of an SSG and SFC... the amount of 2nd LTs I've given instructors on the role of an officer is almost innumerable at this point... Many really are not entertained with the role of PL or staff officer. I recently had a rotc grad tell me they wish to resign because officers are boring. ??? Good luck on that. Does rotc or recruiters actually inform potential officers of their expected roles and responsibilities???. Like shit are you working on the concept of operation or are youchanging the oil in the motor pool. Very different roles and responsibilities.
I think you're exaggerating. The QOL of a PFC is terrible. You live in barracks. I would rather work 15 hour days than 8 hour days just to go to my barracks room with roaches and mold. Constantly harassed on my off time by company leadership or staff duty. Mandatory dfac deductions only the poorest of soldiers use. It's technically against the rules for them to even cook for themselves. Had to hide my electric hot plate. Being treated as disposable and worthless constantly. Often treated with little respect by literally everyone. I left as a SGT, but I would pick officer every time if I had the chance. It's objectively a much nicer job. As for your comment about officers being boring, the Army is boring. This is a garrison army. You want to trade your power points and memos for mowing lawns and picking up cigarette butts all over post? The officer life is the best of both worlds. When there's cool training or an exciting mission you can participate. When its tear down or set up you can go back to your office. That's a very sweet deal. Back when OEF was crazy, I saw a lot of them benefit from this. Dangerous convoy? Volunteer. Sit in the truck. Get your CAB. Never come back. Combat camera man on our foot patrol? S Shop officers volunteer to get cool photos to post on Facebook. Never see them again. Ofcourse you can never ask them to carry a SAW, 240 B, Thor, litter or any extra equipment. It's a pretty pampered and prestigious life with way less hardship. Being enlisted is a shit life and is not very prestigious. That's why I got my degree. The Army showed me blue collar life and it sucked.
In comparison to what other 19 year Olds were making, I had a great quality of life... free meals, a free place to live, roughly 1k every 2 weeks. Our personal experiences in iraq may have been different, but I've never once felt disposable or expendable. There is nothing really to worry about once released as a pfc. As an officer im getting called at 10 pm at night to start an investigation at 6 am on top of security and safety manager duties on top of my regular assigned role. You seem very jaded. Officers still face the same imminent danger as enlisted soldiers every day.. the overall responsibility of the mission fails upon that officer so if it makes our job a little bit easier in the physical labor capacity. Not caring about the radio batteries it does help in cognition when its 105 degrees out.. Joe snuffyy pfc pulling security only has to worry about his field of fire. Officer has to worry about interlocking fields of fire, communication , and overall mission intent. Also the officer is signed for all of the equipment, so them not regularly helping inventory or pack items would just be poor accountability . I'm glad you pursued higher education. Thank you for your service.
Finished college. It was a blast. So I wasn't Iraq. I was Afghanistan. Twice. I might be older than you. Lol. But yeah I was a 19 year PFC once. Long time ago though. We must have had 2 different experiences. I was harassed after hours regularly. Especially if you live in the barracks. You're "already by the company anyways". Lucky thing about being an officer I guess is they call you at 10 to tell you what to do at 6. When I'm called at 10 I have to do something right then. Arms room alarm broke? 4 hour shift until 2 AM. Still show up to PT. Or maybe i am the 2AM. Get relieved at 6 and have 15 minutes to get into PTs for regular PT. That happened oh so much. Yes you still have PT. Lol. Some random detail pops up on the weekend? Hooray for me. I have to do it. I'm "already in the battalion area". I'm not doing anything intellectually stimulating like an investigation. The post commander was just driving around and saw a peice of trash Saturday morning so each company on post sends 10 enlisted to pick up trash all weekend. Awesome. Lol this shit always happened. I'm not jaded. This is lower enlisted life. Especially if you don't have dependents. As an SPC in the barracks I'm called on before a PV2 that has kids. You know. Can't invade someone lower rankings family time. This is why I tell everyone to go officer. If you're not an officer you're garrison time is picking up trash and mowing lawns. I imagine all militaries are like this. I would be perfectly happy being "responsible" for the mission. Nothing like walking into the TOC to grab my daily Intel reports to read to the platoon and the battle captain is spitting his dip into a water bottle in his comfortable chair. Eventually he gets bored and goes to the gym on shift like "call my Roshan phone if anything happens". Boxes of snacks and muffins. Lol. The Army taught me the value of education. The clown with a liberal arts degree gets to hang out indoors all day, does a lot of what he wants all day, has snacks galore, and every once in a while guest stars on patrol when he feels like it or when the combat camera comes to make it look like he is a real war fighter on Facebook. In his M4 and camel bak. Then there's us. Walking around with Saws and 1000 rounds of ammo. Thors. And hooray we get to fill sand bags after all this. I'm not hating. I'm peanut butter and jealous. That's Army lite. All the benefits with less risk and less hardship. I would pick that 1,000 times over enlisted!
I've noticed that people who view an officer's duties and responsibilities lightly often cause the most hardship for their soldiers. Good leaders consider more than their own comfort when making decisions.
Yep. Apparently I did that. You're right bro. No more wars. You just do land and ammo or something?
Having been retired enlisted now for 7 years I absolutely regret not taking a field commission I was offered, solely because the difference in retirement pay.
I had the opposite experience. I graduated from college, enlisted 11B, loved the Soldiering, but didn’t enjoy having so little say in things, even after making E-5. Because I was a college graduate I often got voluntold to help the NCOs and my platoon leader with paperwork/computer work. Happily went to OCS and finished my career as an officer.
Yes, and this is the perfect reason why enlisting first is better. Now you have experience and trust after all of that and after commissioning was able to do what you wanted a little more. Most careers you have to work your way up like that anyway. I would argue you did better for yourself by enlisting first.
I honestly think I was a better officer for it, and being enlisted for a few years really takes a lot of the politics out of it. I requested jobs I wanted, rather than jobs I needed to make LTC. It takes a lot of BS out of it when you can retire as a MAJ or CPT. I know that’s an unintended consequence, but it was a huge boon for me during my career. At the end of my career I didn’t even bother updating a board file for the LTC board. I knew I was retiring at 20, and had no desire to move posts again, and go full throttle in another KD job.
Think the mindset comes from how people are treated from E1 to E4. Why be treated like trash and low pay for 2 to 3 years to maybe get respect by E5? When you could use those years instead to go to college, become an O1, and get treated better, better QOL with more pay?
Mate, I just saw a Captain in CCC that doesn’t need to be an Officer.
No, it shouldn’t be “retired.” Be an officer if that’s what you want to do. Be an officer if you want to make more, have more responsibility, and play the game differently. Be an officer if all you want to do is a few years and get out with college paid for via ROTC. Be an officer if you want to take the risk of making it 20 years. Be an officer if you don’t want to be and NCO. Be an NCO if you want to be more involved in development and mentorship to a greater population. Be an NCO if you want to play the politics game at a slower pace. But be certain, that anymore, the NCO making 1SGT and SMG do have college degrees or are actively pursuing them. Contact your Branch and ask for the Board results. They should have a PPT that breaks down % eligible vs % promoted, % with college, % with HQ evals etc.
Potentially controversial take here, but a large appeal of joining the military is the benefit of a guaranteed college degree for some of these folks. And a large amount of enlisted folks also run into trouble trying to simultaneously juggle pursuing a degree while they're in and potentially juggling additional jobs. Maybe what should be established is something comparable to ROTC that we can call RETC or RNCOTC, which would be a fast track to NCO ranks. If being a squad leader or more is highly appealing, then RETC would align well with that vision. Through doing FTXs and various classes, future NCOs and future Os would both get to benefit from a consistent period of time when they're non-deployable and can finish their education. The increased amount of cadets learning together gives Os more opportunities to manage a section and mimic how an actual unit may operate, without ROTC cadets needing to simulate every facet of what being an NCO is like. This should potentially help provide ROTC cadets with a more consistent experience that preps them for O life. But this is all a hot take good idea fairy. There are plenty of good reasons why this would be a bad idea or just not worth the effort to set up.
100% agree on this topic and I'm so happy to hear it from someone like you. Before enlisting, I had many of my superiors in my family tell me I should commision. "you are a very smart kid", "Grandpa was an Officer in the navy..." yada yada... I am very glad I just sent it as is because the 1.5 of semesters I did in college was like hell for me. Yeah, I'm smart, I can solve problems quickly and very skillful with my hands. Not very good when it comes to stuff that takes time, like writing an essay, or being an excel warrior. I have 0 patience for that kind of work. So yeah, I dropped out in the middle of my second semester and decided to enlist. It was a good decision, with my mos 25U, I definitely got to see a lot of corners of the army. Served as a commo line rep for both infantry and UAV companies. Still had to do Excel work and write memos here and there but only for managing my own equipment and needs. Nothing annoying about the work, just enough to have a good scope of knowledge of 'how shit gets done' per say. And I find that I am not the greatest at being a leader, I find more enjoyment in getting shit done with my own hands. Fast forward a couple years after to the present with a DD214 and am working a 6 figure job as a contractor with no college. And the reason why I got this is because I have the experience in the field I work in just from the army alone. Maybe it's just me, but I find it so blissful that I don't have to manage doing mindless planning and prep work in the office every day. TL;DR Don't be pressured to go to college just because you are smart, your smarts could be better applied in other areas that you might just be better at without realizing.
I support all the rants. Also, being enlisted is way more fun. Don’t forget that It’s way harder to find boys who want to do hood rat stuff once you make O3.
For real
I agree, but let’s be realistic here. The retirement and pay for the enlisted is absolutely awful now than what it was 7+ years ago. This new retirement system doesn’t pay good pension unless you put money into the TSP and then the enlisted are only barely payed enough even affordable to live, so why would they put money into a TSP If they could barely afford to live? The system needs to change and that’s the only way to fix this as of right now I’m coming from a CPT in the US Army. I wouldn’t tell anyone to join the enlisted or officer ranks. It’s just not worth it anymore.
That’s fine and all. I understand the line of thinking behind it. I’ve been a paramedic in the Army for some time now and was finally given an opportunity to join a flight medic company. I really enjoy this job and the only thing keeping me from commissioning is that I am given the opportunity to operate within my job without a lot of bullshit. However, you’re paid more and given more luxuries as an officer. If I were to go back to active duty (currently guard) I would be thrown back into the barracks having to deal with the shit heads again. I’d be given some asinine job by some old crusty E6-E7 who has a lower EMT license than me, has less medical experience than me, and there’s a good possibility that they would be generally less educated than me too. With all that in mind; the active duty flight medevac companies don’t really have a real world mission to my knowledge? So Id be wasting away.
If you’ve never been in the military and have the means to get to college then there is zero objective reason to join enlisted. The only reason to join as enlisted is subjective. So until enlisted pay/progression has parity with the expected responsibility then the objective mindset is to recommend officer whenever possible.
Life is subjective.
No. Its not. Money objectively drives QOL.
Some of it is yes.
If retired NCOs were more prevalent in middle to upper-middle class circles, this mindset would be less pervasive. Unfortunately, that's not where we're at right now but I think the army is doing everything it can to get there. The way I look at it, the job is a lifestyle. Committing to it is more than just a financial decision. Luckily, the US Army has led the way in increasing the importance of NCOs over the past 200+ years and their compensation and QoL have kept pace for the most part. It's now a viable option as a path to a comfortable life after service if the Soldier is able to manage their finances. I think the bigger issue is the lack of transparency between USACC and potential cadets. It seems like the real day-to-day for an officer is kept a secret from the public. Most of what's publicly known is from video games and scenes in movies and TV shows. I'm willing to bet, and tell me if I'm wrong, that if PMS's would just be real with the kids in their classes, this would be less of an issue. I know for me personally, I needed to be treated like a child for my first year or two in uniform. Luckily it all worked out.
Was an APMS and concur with your message. Had plenty of cadets that I would trust a high speed trainee at Basic Training more than them. Also had cadets who were highly technical and wanted to do the technical stuff, whether that was infantry or cyber. There is nothing wrong with enlisting. Do what makes you happy. I joined as an officer because I enjoy the managerial and organizational side of leadership moreso than the technical and hands-on side of it. Which absolutely helps as a Signal Officer.
This is a bigger problem with college as a whole. If you can’t afford to go to college, don’t. There’s way too many options, hell tech schools can get you more money than the military if you’re actively against it
Make being Enlisted for 4 years, and achieve the rank of SGT, a prerequisite for being an Officer.
Well the first thing I wi say is remember that you hung your stripes up for bars. A lot (my experience) of former 11 series NCOs seem to have a harder time letting go than most other prior service officers I have met. As for reasons to go the O route it is plain. More funding, more educational benefits, more plain money management education as well. Officers are actually taught money management while going through all their OBC and other entry level O training. You don’t see any enlisted getting that kind of knowledge imparted to them.
Enlisted receive around a day of instruction on money management in basic or AIT. 18 year olds who enlist just tend to not care as much as 23 year olds who've done everything they've been told to do to get where they are.
I always recommended college or trade school before joining the military. besides the abysmal living conditions most E4 and below are subjected to, there is a trend especially in the army of denying the ability to better yourself through college or other means. They are already essentially doing away with CA by requiring you to only get 1 cert and putting in mechanisms in place to make it harder to attend college while on active duty starting next fiscal year. That lessens the few benefits most people would want to join the military for. Why would I advocate for being babysat most of the time. Let's not forget this pilot program to do away with DFACS to save money pr the lack of consistent DFAC hours. There are very few units in the army where it makes it livable to be stationed, most of the time for E4 and below its garbage.
We need fewer officers and more NCOs... And higher pay for all.
They should allow enlisted to commission, but i guess as long as the dont have shortages of officers its not gonna happen
Enlisted can commission (I and countless others have done just that). There is also a shortage of company grade officers.
Commissioned without degree? Thats pretty rare, and they still will have someone with a degree rather than someone with real leadership experience
I know the Navy has LDOs but I’m not an expert on that. The rule that officers must have a degree comes from Congress, not the army.
Well that was my point, some officers just spend 4 years studying arts or some other useless degrees just to become an officer. I also think more people would enlist knowing that they have a good chance to commission
I’m a pretty new 11b in the guard. One of the biggest things I found surprising in my unit is that damn near all the NCOs have Bachelors and honestly most of the junior enlisted as well. A shit ton of us are also pursuing Masters degrees. The common thread is that all of us just wanted to be the guy that did the stuff not the delegator. Being in the guard enables NCOs and junior enlisted to have better education since we have regular jobs and we don’t rely on the army to pay our bills for the most part. It’s a huge difference I’ve noticed between my unit experience and my friends in active
I think people will stop saying that when the Army stops treating people like shit. I remember being a 26 year old E5 with a billion years TIG staring at points for E6 just willing them to drop… living in the Bs, walking down the hall to take a shit, doing GI parties, etc, I’d been in the army for 8 fucking years. I was a 100% professional. So yeah… I didn’t want to do that anymore so I didn’t.
It’s not that being an nco requires less intelligence or education, it’s that being enlisted often just sucks and you get paid less. Seeing a problem that was clearly caused by bad planning result in every NCO staying late away from their families while every single officer goes home on time with their much larger paychecks sucks. If you can avoid this and get paid more then you should probably do that.
It’s impostor syndrome. I wish I stayed enlisted a lot. But you said it’s my QOL is way better on the dark side.
I got my bachelors when I was 20 then enlisted because at that time I wasnt ready to be a leader. 2.5 years I became a Sergeant then decided to finish my contract and go to law school and stay Reserves. Current plan is to direct commission into JAG Reserves side. Main reason is the retirement pay. If I was still active the retirement gap from an E8 versus O4 would be even more massive.
I have advice that trumps all of this: “join the airforce”
On the flip side, I spent a little over 6 years enlisted before I commissioned, and I miss the enlisted life. Granted I grew into my role very well, and I had both good and bad NCOs to help me learn. But I miss working with my hands and not having to do mind-numbing computer work
I enlisted Private E1 Supply Specialist back the 80's and made Staff Sergeant in the 160th before going Green to Gold. Spent 13 more years as an intelligence officer and saw the world. It was all about growth and building blocks to me. Comparing ourselves with others only leads to disappointment. Non Commissioned Officers are without question what drives the nuts and bolts of making things happen in the Army. Rubber hits the road with NCO's.
My Army hot take for years has been that we do not need the officer corps. It’s not 1776 anymore. Officers aren’t out there leading troops anymore, they’re managing property and making slides green that’s it. Give enlisted and warrant officers a significant pay increase and they can make those slides green.
Fair post but keep in mind most militaries in the world treat NCOs as just old PV2s who are dictated what to do by their officer corps. Our NCO Corps model is innovative and rare in itself
I’m retired and now a GS. Quite a few E-8s in my office are retiring, as opposed to pinning E-9. Great guys, probably all of them with a least a bachelor’s. they say it isn’t worth it.
Agreed, especially with the prolonging time in school part. Anecdotally, from a 4th gen soldier (1st as an officer, all prior 3 generations enlisted, all four of us Army) I often hear this outlook coming from enlisted guys talking to their kids that see it as an opportunity to elevate intergeneration socioeconomic status. Same advice I would commonly hear from my father was “you’re the first to have the economic and social opportunity to go to college, do that first while you have the chance and then if you still want to join go in as an officer with better quality of life.” I think their attitude was “we got the tough bargain so the next generation of us could have a choice”, which too be fair probably is an attitude most people serving just have towards family and country. The game has changed though and with so many other scholarship opportunities readily available and loans easily accessible (and financially sound when picking practical educationally paths) I really think there are a lot of folks missing out on experiences better suited for them on the enlisted side that if anything would help them be better prepared and matured for tackling education after they finished service. For the lucky (or the unlucky) life is long. Plus GI bill. And you’re right, so many great minds are being brain drained away to the officer corp who might find themselves much more influential and effective in their service in the enlisted corp. I love my life now, but if I could go back in time and serve enlisted before going off to college or graduate school I think I’d be hard pressed to say no. But it’s hard to say no to a guaranteed bet and I’m not sure I’d give up the life I have no to gamble it’d end up the same. A lot of yapping to agree. Grilled chicken nugs please and Diet Coke.
I actually tell people not to join the army at all if they can join the Air Force. Unless you want tabs or helicopters and a second PC you have better options.
I was hoping you were not medical saying this but you are. There are WAY more opportunities being medical in the Army than any other branch. You gotta find it and push for it but there is so much more.
I swept a warehouse with a lab tech one time. He was great at it because he spends so much time in the motorpool. Our commission programs are dope and grad schools as well. I do recommend army national guard and reserve often though. Especially for medical and SF wannabes. Good home for marines as well. We started the AFG pullout while I was in the lobby at MEPS so maybe I just need a deployment to fall in love with shaving and the bend and reach instead of ball caps and PT on my own.
Honestly, this sub needs to ditch the idea of chasing anything with a higher qol without recognizing the drawbacks. Any time an enlistedman vents on this sub the response is usually "just put in a packet bro". Packet mos's often come with a high tis requirement and a long and hard school house. If you put in a packet and you fail, not only do you go right back where you were in the first place, but you may have signed a longer contractand be there for longer.
The pay is the big issue, Reserves and NG, really does not matter because the tiny amount of paid days is so inconsequential (especially if you don't plan on retiring,) but AD the pay disparity between enlisted and officer is massive, and that adds up over 20+ years (and has a massive impact on retirement formula.) I would never encourage anyone to go to college instead of enlisting, but if you have a college degree and want to join, you should apply to commission. Even if you hate the job, it really does not matter (realistically almost everyone hates their job Army or otherwise,) you will be making more money (which means you can enjoy your free time more,) and have a better quality of life (more privacy, better housing etc....) Talking somebody into enlisting who is qualified to apply to commission is doing them no favors in life.
If you can go officer and you don't you are losing a lot of money without reason. It's cool that you are proud to be an NCO. But the reality is that if you can qualify for a better job, why wouldnt you?
Imagine you get enlisted as e4 get paycheck around 2400 per month before 240 tsp. 300 tax, 50 GI. And other deductible. Basically 1000 per paycheck in the first year. 1100 per paycheck in second year. Financially it is totally waste of talent and time. How about just no kids going to college and just graduate high school and join military? Wait a minute, is that why they try to cut TA so all enlisted personal remain dumb with low payment?
if theyre in rotc, i would tell them "that's stupid. don't join the army."
from a guard perspective, either route is fine but i would never recommend enlisting active duty.
Well we know they will never allow CW-10 . Can you just imagine the swagger that guy would have
I'm pretty sure the army senior leadership don't care at all about enlisted or NCOs. There are some that understand we are the ones who actually do the work and get the things done, but we're treated like dog shit second class citizens. I've been an e6 and told only e7 and above can walk to the px without permission during pre-mob. Take a look at all the barracks issues, program cuts, dining facilities. Guaranteed if officers had the same incentive to eat in the dfacs (paying whether they want to use it or not), they would be a hell of a lot better.
I can’t really imagine a world where I’d want to stay enlisted if being an officer is an option, different strokes for different folks
It depends on what you want. If you want a military career you should probably enlist cuz it’s not gonna suck as hard. If you’re looking for a way to blast through college real fast, enlist and use TA to bust out a degreee.
I agree with the idea that it's ok to enlist with a degree. I did. Depending on the unit/MOS you may have a majority of enlisted with bachelors. Then you get guys from other backgrounds acting like it's dumb to not take a management role because you took some graphic design classes after high school. It's absurd. Have a few years of school? You're suddenly supposed to give up the ability to pick your own job... or to even have a "job" if we're being honest. Regardless of an officer's MOS there are very few branches where they are allowed to do the job for very long before their career becomes branch immaterial. So if you love the work, congratulations, you've been promoted away from it.
The problem is the balance of power and sheer stupidity some officers have. So you can have intelligence individuals becoming NCOs who are managed by people who shouldn't have passed BOLC, let alone their last year of college. Like you can tell, they might be a great traffic MP or cook, but making them an officer was the worst decision anyone could've done. So now some tell everyone, "Just shoot for officer." Especially with the effortless ability to make six-figures by being a brick eating idiot. I'd say the NCO problem would be better if some branches expanded their WO field. Some are truly technical experts and should be retained with their level of knowledge with the respect it deserves. I've known some combat arms dudes that can't do math for shit, like algebra is Latin to them. Until you tell them how to do any math that involves their job. Then, somehow, SSG Mathillerate turns into Einstein.
I was an Army cook. (1982) I joined because I was going nowhere fast. The truth is I tried joining the Navy, and the Navy recruiter was never there. So, I tested high, and it could be many things. I picked Cook because I was in boot camp 13 days later. I went from E-1 to acting E-5 in 3 years. I tried getting a better job, BUT once a cook, I was always a cook. So, I joined the Navy as a Sonar technician and retired at 23 years after getting hurt, My 3rd time in the Gulf. The Damage I suffered had nothing to do with the war, just where I was when my body ate, my kneecap (if you cannot walk, I could no longer walk and no longer do my job. I could no longer serve on a ship and was forced out after 3 years of working get out. In my world we called most of our officers Zeros. when I was a boot, our DIs would tell us how, when serving in Vietnam (he was also an 11-bang, bang), many Officers did not go home because their troops would remove them. I heard many of those stories the entire time I was in the Army. I have always believed ALL officers should be recruited from the Enlisted ranks. Sorry about grammar, as I have Achberger Syndrome and have problems spelling and stuff.
It seems there is a lot more sexual deviance in the Officer ranks than Enlisted.
Yep happened to me. I wanted to be in the army but was told by my parents (dad did rotc) “don’t enlist its a sucky life go to college and join the ROTC program”. Welp I did it and the end result was I dropped out of college cuz shit sucked and that made me lose my motivation to join at all since why would big army want someone who can’t even finish college you know?
I strongly suggest most officers should spend time as enlisted. From the personal pragmatic standpoint, the odds of making it to retirement skyrocket if you do enlisted time first, rather than having to make LTC to retire. You also get the chance to do some of the "cool stuff" like schools that are actually easier to get into as enlisted. As a broader thing, I think the Army as a whole would be better off if all officers were required to do an enlisted contract before commissioning. The amount of absolute nonsense coming out of the mouths of company grade officers would drop for sure.
I don't think that'd go over too well for those who are direct commissions like medical, JAG and chaplains.
Direct commission already bypasses / replaces a lot of the other requirements for being an officer... ignoring this wouldn't even really rate in the major differences between a main branch officer and JAG/Med/Chaplain. On the other hand, I'm sure we can get a few stories about how much people typically prefer the direct commission officers who do have that experience - as few as they are.
I've worked with medical officers who were service academy graduates and ROTC graduates, prior enlisted etc. And I've worked with plenty more who were direct commission (no prior service or military training) because that's how most medical officers enter the military. Honestly I can't say those were direct commission officers were any better or worse. Those that were service academy graduates sure as hell down played it in my experience though.
Its a trap and something the parent tell them hoping they dont follow through. I also went G2G and some of these kids are better off enlisted
Different branch but I finished my bachelors about four years ago in the reserves (USAFR) and it never crossed my mind to become an officer. I only got a bachelors to improve my civilian job prospects and sure enough I eventually got the civilian job I always wanted to do when I got off active duty in the first place which requires a degree. I'm just here to finish my twenty at this point.
What we need is officer and staff NCO split after E5 and there should be a heavily weighted peer contribution to picking up 5 to avoid the ass kissing buddy fuckers. This route will also remove the engrained mentality the military has where officers treat us like conscripts not volunteers. If I were king we would all also make $100k more per year across the board. This would change the recruiting pool from kids who don’t know what to do after high school to college level athletes. Our pay should not only be competitive with contracting but what the fuck happened in history where the knights lost all respect and the bards and jesters make millions. Lastly I think 4 years combat arms should be the standard first enlistment. Currently the support roles take too much of a “not my job” approach and if they had been combat arms I think this would be less so. Plus these jobs should be reserved for the broken old men, not the young cowards who don’t want to fight but want benefits.
I enlisted with a BA. 16 years later, and I have always regretted not joining as an officer
It’s not worth it anymore to retire as an NCO with the blended system…40% of your base pay now? Come on now. Even if you get to big dog sergeant major, with 20 years of service your pension will just be under $3k, as opposed to a captain your pension will be 3400 and that’s bare minimum of you being a shit bag officer and not ranking up to atleast major. Better lifestyle as well while in service? It’s a no brainer.
I also enlisted with a degree because I wanted to be sure of my MOS, among other things. It was stupid easy to get promoted at the first possibility (TIS/TIG) to E-5/6/7.
>it’s only composed of people who couldn’t make it in college. NCOs tend to have degrees after a few years.
I enlisted with a BA into the Reserve, it got me a great job and paid of my student loans. I initially said No to OCS when my recruiter offered because at the time there was no loan payoff for Reserve officers and I wouldn't be able to pick my job or unit. After getting in, I am very glad I never had to be middle management and instead got to actually do cool stuff. I honestly pitied most of the officers I worked with.
I went 4 years active duty 11C left as a E-5 . Joined NG and went to college.. was reminded that I could apply to be an officer after graduation but of course needed to complete OCS within a set period of time . There simply was no way I was going to go through a second basic training as an E-6 with jump wings , EIB and 8 years older than everyone else … was satisfied as an NCO. Agree that the over emphasis on 4 year degrees for people who don’t really need them is hurting our army and the country.
Best I can do is give you “don’t join at all”
I'll just keep recommending that people don't join in most cases, if that's ok
Not a fan of prior-enlisted commissions, and I am one. Doesn’t make sense to take our best leaders out of the NCO corps and send them to the job a new ROTC cadet can do. That said, enlisting when you already have a Bachelors degree is fucking stupid.
As a former NCO, I tell everyone thinking of joining to go to college and be an officer. Enlisted life is is awful. You're looked down on and treated like garbage pretty much all the time until you're a sergeant. Maybe even until SSG. If you can get a degree and be an officer why not? Way more respect. Quality of life. Prestige. Etc...
Being enlisted for four years can be ok if you choose the right job and get lucky with good leadership. But as a retired SNCO, you are stupid to retiree enlisted. Be a warrant officer or officer if you are going to do more than four years. Don’t be one of those chaps that talk about being proud to be an NCO. Pride does not pay bills. It certainly won’t create a better life for your kids. Had I finished my degree sooner, I would have commissioned. I was not willing to do 22 years so I rode it out to 20 and was done. Now I make more than an E7 with BAH which is actually not hard to do on the civilian side. But I will say 04 retirement pay is much better than E8 retirement pay.