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
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
The marines are absolutely the best at actually "being the military" and, yes, that includes their officer selection all the way down to their basic training. Look at the absolute psychos they have at the top and it's clear they promote on merit far more than other branches.
thats the other side innit. you can get the good soldiers but they're fucking mad murderous fools
Can you say more about how they operate compared to the other branches?
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.