The Army and Iraq

[Scooter]

Everyone's been pretty much right about WOs. Larry- most Warrants in the Army today were drawn from the enlisted structure, if they desired to go to WOCS and demonstrated themselves to be a subject matter expert in their MOS. It's kind of rare to see a 20 year old WO, unless he's a rotorhead. One of the CW4s I worked with in Iraq was an 11B in Vietnam.

Warrants can also be officers who, for some reason or other, didn't have a chance in hell to advance in the Officer Corps. Another Chief in my old battalion was a former Captain who, upon realizing he wasn't going to make Major (O-4), he opted to become a WO1.

[Atlan]

Ok. I've got a grasp on what I want, now. But some of the information around is fairly confusing.

http://www.us-army-info.com/pages/mos/e ... s/21b.html

I'm fairly sure that's the kinda guy I'm after. I have a few questions though.
1: Can a guy who just enlisted advance through all four skill levels consecutivly in training, or do they have to wait?
2: What rank (and how many people can they order around) at each skill level?
3: How long does each stage take in training?

[Lioconvoy]

I don't know about the Army, but in the Airforce you can't even test for the next skill level unless you've reached a certain rank. For example I'm a 5 level, I can't go for my seven level untill after I promote to an E-5.

[Drawde]

E1 is private E1, E2 is private E2, E3 is private first class, E4 is specialist and corporal. E1-E3 is just addressed as private, and E4 by rank (like Private Smith). E1-E4 pretty much can't order anyone around unless put in charge of something. Corporals are ALMOST sergeants though, and tend to be put in charge more often.

E5 on up are various sergeants, and are the enlisted in charge of things, the higher up, the more they're in charge of. Can't remember what's after sergeant (E5)though. I always got those messed up.

The "E" in the above stands for "Enlisted", and is both pay grade, and rank.

[lwf58]

Skill levels are tied to rank. You advance to each skill level as you rise in rank, although there's nothing stopping you from studying for the next level. Note that supervision is included in the description of the levels after the first; that's because they are part of ranks E-5 or higher.

As I mentioned before, after Private First Class (E-3), there is a branching of the rank structure. Most soldiers become "specialists", which is a way of giving soldiers a higher pay grade when they don't have command authority. Corporals and sergeants get paid the same, but are part of the chain of command.

In theory, if you have an E-6 who is a specialist, and an E-4 who is a corporal, the E-4 could legally give orders to the specialist even though he's two pay grades higher. In reality, it's not that simple, since seniority does matter and specialists can be given derivative command authority by a person in the chain of command. That's often considered part of the job they are doing, so the derived authority is automatic.

The reason why they have that structure is because there are only so many command slots available, determined by the organization structure. But no one wants to hold a soldier back from advancing in pay levels. So they came up with the parallel advancement track so that the majority of soldiers could make more money without having to wait for an opening in the Table of Organization (TO).

As a general rule, certain ranks are in charge of units of troops in fairly simple progression, although there are always exceptions and overlaps between pay grades for a given position. That means that the following is a general guideline. The reality may vary wildly from it.

Corporals assist sergeants. Corporal is a fairly uncommon rank these days; the role is usually filled by Specialists Fourth Class.
Sergeant E-5 and/or Staff Sergeant E-6 commands a squad or section.
Staff Sergeant E-6 and/or Sergeant First Class E-7 commands a platoon, under a Lieutenant.
Master Sergeant and/or First Sergeant commands a company, under a Captain.
Sergeant Major commands a battalion or regiment under a Major, Lieutenant Colonel, or Colonel.
Command Sergeant Major commands a division under a General.
Sergeant Major of the Army is the top position, and works in the Pentagon under the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[lwf58]

Oh... Forgot breakdown of jobs. Again, this is in generalities. Specifics often vary.

Field-grade officers (Major through Colonel) and general officers determine strategy at various levels. That is, they decide what needs to be done. This can be defined as "what, where, and when".

Lower levels officers determine tactics. That is, they decide how to do what the field grade officers tell them to do based on the actual conditions on the ground. This can be defined as "how".

Sergeants at all levels provide direction to those lower in the chain about how to accomplish the tasks assigned to them by their officers. They make the action happen by giving orders that immediately affect whatever is in progress at the time. Officers make policy. Sergeants carry out that policy.

[nodregah]

At the moment my current job is that of a C.O.B. Civilian on the Battlefield. I am a role player for the Army at a National Guard Training site. (Do Not say that the National Guard gets inferior training, Our Boss is 1st Army.) Before a unit ships out they are shipped to a training site in the US and are trained and Certified to deploy, theater specific. This takes from 1 to 3 months, sometimes longer. When this training is complete they have 7 to 10 days of leave then they deploy.
Sorry if I sound a little addled, just got off a 16 hour training lane for Afghanistan. When playing an Insurgent, sleep is a luxury we do not have. I'm only awake now 'cause I had an hour drive hone and I am letting the caffene(sp?) wear off.

[Darth Thanatos]

Most of what has been said comes implicitly with the "in peacetimes" tag.

Wartime is another matter entirely.

Chances are that you get your assignment very fast after you finish Basic Training.

Portions of training may be even skipped to speed up the filling of available rank slots and creation of new units, specially if things are going bad, or too well.

And of course, battlefield promotions don't happen in peacetime. But even in war, those are not as frequent as war novels and movies make them look to be.

Does the fanfic happen in peacetime, wartime, or changes from one to the other at some point?

That would change things, but as I'm not familiar with the US military, I'm not sure how things would change.

As far as I know, the current operations in Iraq are not wartime operations, but I'm not sure.

[lwf58]

Iraq is a war. The way you can tell is because reserve and national guard units are activated and serve tours of duty there. In non-war scenarios like "peacekeeping" or "police actions", the reserves are not usually involved, and the national guards from the various States are almost never involved.

Of course, terms like peacekeeping and police actions are euphemisms. When someone is shooting at you, you're at war, whatever the politicians might say.

[Drawde]

As I mentioned before, after Private First Class (E-3), there is a branching of the rank structure. Most soldiers become "specialists", which is a way of giving soldiers a higher pay grade when they don't have command authority. Corporals and sergeants get paid the same, but are part of the chain of command.

Is this something recent? When I got out of the army in 2003, specialists were just E-4. E-5 and up were just sergeants. If you weren't a sergeant, they got rid of you at ten years.

[lwf58]

Okay, I just did some quick research. Turns out the higher ranks of specialist were phased out in between 1978 and 1985. My time in the Army was from 1976 to 1990, with the last several years spent inactive. So I just didn't notice that the ranks were disappearing as the people holding them moved on and no one replaced them.

At the time I was active, specialists up to E-7 were common enough to be unremarkable. That has changed. Now, only E-4 survives as a specialist rank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_%28rank%29

There are two notes in that article that I found interesting. Specialist rank has gained the nickname "full bird private", which it didn't have in my time, and the concept of the "E-4 Mafia" which also didn't exist back then.

[Lioconvoy]

I thought your information sounded off, so it's only that it was outdated. I trained at an army post, and my first duty station was an army post in Korea, so I know a little about their rank stucture and none of that sounded familiar.

[Drawde]

I thought your information sounded off, so it's only that it was outdated. I trained at an army post, and my first duty station was an army post in Korea, so I know a little about their rank stucture and none of that sounded familiar.

You too? My first post was Camp Hovey/Casey, Korea. From what I heard, the year after I left, one of the monsoons washed much of it out. I lucked out and was there a dry year (only had to sandbag the creek running behind the barracks once ).

As for hitting sergeant, you have to have so many points to make it, which varies by MOS. The specific number of points changes based on whether or not that MOS has a sergeant slot open. If it doesn't, the number's set high, 796 I think it was. Schooling can give up to around 300-400 (it's capped), various awards and such give you points, and going to the board gives out up to 100. You HAVE to go to the board, and score somewhere over 90, in order to make E-5.

The board is basically where you dress up and stand in front of a board of people, usually made up of people higher up in your chain of command, and answer a bunch of questions about the army. They grade you based on appearence and how you handle the stress. They tend to rapid-fire the questions, and ask in an aggressive manor, to see if they can get a reaction from you. You have to stand properly the whole time, I think at attention (back straight, knees slightly bent, feet and arms properly postioned, and stare straight ahead) and can't look at the specific questioner. Answering truthfully is what counts, they only mark off for extensive "I don't know"s or wrong answers. The questions are mainly rote memorization, and they publish books on the more common questions. If you don't have enough points to get promoted after going to the board, the board points last for about half a year to a year.

The boards get tougher the higher the rank you're trying to reach

If you have enough points, you get sent to school for a few weeks, to learn how to lead people properly. Also, once used to actually get promoted, your points are cleared, and you start from zero to get to the next rank.

If I remember right, they got rid of the higher specialists, and discharge you if you don't make E-5 in 8-10 years (this number changed while I was in to ten), in order to weed out the people who weren't serious about the army.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that the ranks of E-1 to E-4 are automatic, after spending a certain amount of time in the rank before. If they don't promote you, it's usually done as a severe punishment. You can get demoted as a punishment, and you have to spend the apropriate amount of time in the rank to get promoted again. This is usually only done with the lower enlisted (E-1 to E-5) though. Staff sergeants (E-6) and above are usually considered to know better by then, and are usually discharged after being promoted. Depends on the mistake that got you punished though, and your chain of command.

[lwf58]

Adding to that, it's possible for ranks E-1 through E-4 to be promoted ahead of schedule for merit. A waiver is submitted by the soldier's immediate chain of command recommending it. If it's approved, the waiver is transmitted to the promotions office of the division and processed. Handling the paperwork for promotions of that range of pay grades was my last job on active duty, in the 7th Infantry's Personnel and Administration Battalion.