specifically right now/recently. what are the recruitment paths, who do they draw? has it changed much? how different is the officers’ disposition from the enlisted?
im reading about the Grande Armeé rn so naturally im curious about existing systems
specifically right now/recently. what are the recruitment paths, who do they draw? has it changed much? how different is the officers’ disposition from the enlisted?
im reading about the Grande Armeé rn so naturally im curious about existing systems
so would this analysis apply to other academies, like the navy one? iirc westpoint is the one that needs congressional recommendation?
so OCS are selected from enlisted, meritocratic like?
im kind of surprised that westpointers outnumber rotc people, seems like rotc is more common
The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland has that same requirement, as does the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
I can only speak to Navy shit (was an enlisted sailor in a previous life), and I’m going on vibes and anecdotes, but basically every officer Commander (O-5) and up I ever met was a ring-knocker (slang for Academy fuckers). The majority of them seem to have come from military legacy families. Naval officers are a little different, as they still have a lot of the aristocratic accoutrements of the old Royal Navy. I heard one of them say that the surface navy was the last vestige of medieval feudalism, where the Captain was still the lord and what he says goes. The officers ate on bone-china plates with actual silver silverware (I know, I fucking had to polish them) and drank out of crystal glasses, all in their fancy wood-paneled wardroom while we ate on those divided plastic prison trays, eating dry ass beef with a fork and butter knife.
So, the class character of senior naval officers is predominantly the sons of senior naval officers. They almost all go work for the military industrial complex after they retire at 20 years.
wait so the implication of this is that the marines are probably the best officered lmao
US marine officers go through navy training, whether the Naval Academy, navy ROTC, or navy OCS. So, both navy and marine officers are
trainedyelled at by both navy chiefs and marine gunnery sergeants. They do tend to be less weird about the aristocratic shit compared to navy officers, and most of the marine officers seem to only really eat in the wardroom on ships because they’re not allowed to eat elsewhere.