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-Z- (z@gundam.com)
Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:41:18 -0800
> >Says who? Every high ranking officer had to start out somewhere, right?
>
> Ever heard of officer school/academy/West Point? While the grunts are doing
> their drills in the trenches and working their way up the hierarchy, future
> high-ranking officers are in the academy being prepped as strategicians
> who'd order these grunts around like chess pieces. Not all of them started
> at the bottom or worked their way up every step of the ladder. Ltnt. Gorman
> from the film Aliens is one such example. Although he commands the
> Colonial Marines, his combat/mission experience is probably the lowest in
> the entire squad. I am pretty sure -Z-, having served in the military,
> can elaborate on this further.
It can be worse than that -- you can have high-ranking officers with no military
experience whatsoever. Doctors, lawyers and other professionals who enter
military service are given automatic commissions to a rank commensurate with
their civilian scope of authority. You see this is M*A*S*H, for example, where
surgeons are automatically placed as captains and majors (O-3 and O-4) and
hospital administrators as lieutenant colonels and colonels (O-5 and O-6). Or
JAG, where you won't see a lawyer under the rank of lieutenant junior grade
(O-2) and usually, again, as lieutenants and lieutenant commanders (O-3 and
O-4).
A lot of kids go from high school Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) to
college ROTC to one of the service academies and come out as O-1 with nothing
but book learning, not even the experience of holding a civilian job. They're
typically paired with a senior NCO, who can keep them in line while they get the
necessary seasoning without ruffling their feathers.
Then there are "90-Day Wonders" -- guys with a Bachelor's degree and the other
necessary qualifications to make officer who join up during wartime, get run
through an abbreviated course and put into the field. This term is also applied
to recent academy grads and professionals who get bumped into place by dint of
their civilian, not military, experience. Shiro Amada of 08th MS Team appears
to qualify as one.
-Z-
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