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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   26490 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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I know embarrassingly little about the military, but don't officers typically start out as soldiers? Or are full-on wars these days so rare that by the time they're promoted to officers, most of them haven't actually done much fighting?

I know embarrassingly little about the military, but don't officers typically start out as soldiers?

No. Officers and enlisted (both are soldiers) are two completely separate, parallel career tracks. Officers are the middle-class track; they require a college degree and usually start at 22. Enlisted are the working-class track, and usually start at 18. All officers outrank all enlisted (in theory, anyway; in practice, only a very stupid lieutenant would try to boss around a senior enlisted, who would quickly have a word with a higher-ranking officer to put the kid in his place). A small number of officers (referred to as mustangs) start out as enlisted, but that's rare.

Heinlein takes a shot at this system in Starship Troopers:

The Commandant continued: "That’s the Moment of Truth, gentlemen. Regrettably there is no method known to military science to tell a real officer from a glib imitation with pips on his shoulders, other than through ordeal by fire. Real ones come through — or die gallantly; imitations crack up.

"Sometimes, in cracking up, the misfits die. But the tragedy lies in the loss of others... good men, sergeants and corporals and privates, whose only lack is fatal bad fortune in finding themselves under the command of an incompetent.

"We try to avoid this. First is our unbreakable rule that every candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although some came close. Most great military schools of the past — Saint Cyr, West Point, Sandhurst, Colorado Springs didn’t even pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them, commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command men... and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young ‘officer’ was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.

"At least we have no misfits of those sorts. We know you are good soldiers — brave and skilled, proved in battle else you would not be here. We know that your intelligence and education meet acceptable minimums. With this to start on, we eliminate as many as possible of the not-quite-competent — get them quickly back in ranks before we spoil good cap troopers by forcing them beyond their abilities. The course is very hard — because what will be expected of you later is still harder.

"In time we have a small group whose chances look fairly good. The major criterion left untested is one we cannot test here; that undefinable something which is the difference between a leader in battle... and one who merely has the earmarks but not the vocation. So we field-test for it

"Gentlemen! — you have reached that point. Are you ready to take the oath?"

But every military in the world uses a similar structure, so there must be something to recommend it.

According to the Peter principle people in a hierarchy tend to rise to the level of respective incompetence. Since it is apparently so important to have competent sergeants, I'd guess the command would prefer them remain sergeants rather than be promoted to officers.

No, almost none go that way. Officers start out in college, usually with a communications degree. Then they get a couple weeks learning military terminology, a few schools for their specialty, and then they get a platoon of dudes who don't respect them and wouldn't follow them into a public restroom. 99% aren't in combat billets. For the few who are, they spend six months to a year as second lieutenants on "the line", the only time in their career they'll regularly interact with real soldiers. Mostly they'll be bailing them out of jail and handling their pay.

After that, it's administration for twenty years, and if you're shit hot, maybe a command.

Thanks for the explanation.

No. Officers are officers and enlisted (including "non-commissioned officers") are enlisted, and going from enlisted to officer is rare (and for some reason called "going mustang"). Two separate hierarchies, the officer one being formally entirely superior to the enlisted -- that is, the newest second lieutenant could give an order to the Sergeant Major of the Army (the highest enlisted soldier). (Though in practice that ain't gonna happen)

and for some reason called "going mustang"

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I think the military usage came first, but am not certain. I recall it being used for the character Sharpe in the eponymous books, but that may have been an anachronism.

Mustang comes from the Spanish 'mestengo', itself derived from a medieval Spanish legal class of runaway livestock which was no longer the property of the original owner due to long-straying. It basically means 'feral animal', although Americans are more familiar with its use to refer to runaway slave communities deeper in Latin America.

Or are full-on wars these days so rare

You can probably answer that question yourself.

Who am I kidding, you're blocking me.

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