Posted on 02/08/2024 6:55:11 AM PST by Loud Mime
Air Force officials are considering bringing back warrant officers and may start creating a training program this year, reversing a decision from 65 years ago when the service ended that grade, according to a planning document obtained by Military.com.
The three-page planning order says that "great power competition" -- Defense Department lingo for escalating defense spending and resources against adversaries such as China -- is underscoring the need to resurrect warrant officers, the corps of highly technical service members who are above the enlisted ranks but below the commissioned officer ranks.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
This might be a good career option for my 18 y/o grandson. He wants to elist in the AF, but is more interested in a technical path.
The military took a look at the millennials and gen z and said no freakin’ way.
Interesting how many NCOs I served with had associate, bachelor’s or master’s degrees. One even had a PhD. And it wasn’t because they wanted to go to OTS.
E-8s and E-9s were there to replace him but he outranked them. Junior officers outranked him but he had an excellent rapport with their senior officers. He just got left alone to do his job.
My dad was a Warrant Officer in the Air Force, which he achieved during WWII when the “Air Force” was still the Army Air Corps.
I served as an USAF SMsgt and have a Bs and a pair of Associate degrees.
The Air Force ‘added’ E 8 and E 9 to remove the WO corps.
Unfortunately, with the rise in on-line ‘matchbook’ colleges, getting a degree is no longer the big deal it used to be, back in the day.
BTW - Matchbook college is the kind that advertises on the back of matchbooks and tout they are “Nationally Certified.”
In the fine print you see this disclaimer - “Credits are unlikely to be accepted elsewhere”
Another sign of the accelerating dis-integration of the US Nation-State.
Back in 1980...I was in a PME class and we had one of the last WO’s in the reserve (McChord AFB) come in and give a 45-min talk.
It was an interesting review. The AF was fearful of congress eventually figuring out that WO’s could be pilots, and trim billets. So they went to larger number of billets for enlisted...to ease out the WO’s.
Personally, if you had a 2-year degree and 6 years of service, I could see a quarter of all E8/E9 and O-1/2 billets going away...replaced by WOs. In my final three years, about half of the senior enlisted (the over-20 crowd) I worked around had a four-year degree accomplished. Whole different atmosphere existing than what was around in mid-1970s.
What’s shaping up here...serious problems in keeping NCOs around past 20, and recruiting both enlisted/junior officers. They aren’t looking at 2024....this is open-path to 2027 likely developing where they invent 1,500 WOs, when they admit serious shortages of manpower.
On the clown show? Early 90s, you could see a trend where O-6s who were incompetent...were getting stars, and creating daily dramas. Same eventually came for senior NCO ranks.
I talked a year ago with a captain who was approaching his end of obligation to the AF (6 months to go). He was submitting resumes and preparing to exit. He had a 2Lt who was fairly woke, and several of the junior airmen continually questioned directions/orders. Captain had given up on verbal corrections, and gone to paperwork documentation/counseling with threats. As he described it...guidance/focus was in a toxic state of existence.
I always followed orders. I even earned some awards. (Joined in 2001)
Different time, different life.
I will always look on my time in fondly.
It helped me get my act together.
I was probably a “better adult” then than now…
Thanks for the post.
Interesting position. The military is short of computer geeks that wouldn’t fit in with the regulars. Pay wouldn’t be good enough either. This may be the answer.
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