Army Warrant Officer or USMC OSC

[cofranc736]

Hello all, I am new to the forums.

For the past few weeks, I have been working with a USMC Officer Recruiter to build an application to be submitted for an aviation contract for a board in early 2016. My lifelong dream since I was a kid was to fly helicopters in the military. I originally was going to do the Army ROTC route, but when finding out I had to sign a contract before getting a pilot slot, I opted not to go forward. I am now a senior in college and have been with the Marine Corps Officer Recruiter for a few weeks now because I knew that one could be offered an air contract before signing anything. However, I did not realize that Army Warrant Officers could do the same thing.

I know that even if I were offered a USMC air contract, there is a chance that I wouldn't fly helicopters. If I became an Army Warrant Officer, I would be guaranteed a helicopter (pending graduation from all courses and schools). Since I am more interested in flying as opposed to doing more administrative and managerial work, would I be better off going with the Army to become a Warrant Officer instead of being a Commissioned Officer in the Marine Corps?

Thank you for any replies in advance.

 

[Rugby_Guy]

Maine Corps will stress that you are an officer first and that your MOS is secondary to leading Marines. This structure will cause you to do B billets outside of your MOS (your OSO isn't a career recruiter), or out of the cockpit. So, if all you want is to wiggle a stick and not let the administrative stuff stop any flight hours, Warrsnt is for you. Mom the other hand, if you have any aspirations of being a Commanding Officer for a unit one day, you'll need to be commissioned.

 

[cofranc736]

Thank you for the reply.

Do you know if it's possible to eventually become a commissioned officer after serving a Warrant Officer contract?

 

[exNavyOffRec]

Go for the USMC, you could fly an aircraft that is like a helicopter and a plane! but seriously go for the USMC

 

[RobLyman]

Having done both the commissioned side (Navy) and warrant side (Army) I can shed some light on this a bit. I have flown the same amount as a naval officer up to my first disassociated sea tour as I have as a warrant officer in the Army. I would imagine the USMC would be similar. For my disassociated sea tour as a flag staffer on a CCDG I flew a little bit but did not meet my minimums. Some guys in some jobs manage to make their minimums on a disassociated tour, but I would guess that less than half do. Since I haven't been in the Navy since 1996 you may want to check with some of the younger guys and some USMC guys for more up to date and relevant info.

As a full timer in the Army National Guard and a CW3 I make my semi-annual minimums in the first two months and frequently get double my annual minimums. Once out of flight school the warrants tend to get a little more flight time than the 2LTs and 1LTs, but not much more. By O-3 and CW2, the time starts to tilt a lot more in favor of the warrants, assuming they have made PC and are tracked.

We have guys in our guard unit who have reverted from O-3/O-4/O-5 to CW2 and a few that have commissioned from warrant to O-1. This is possible on active duty, but much less common.

From someone who has done both, I don't regret my time as a Navy O-1 thru O-4, but I enjoy being a warrant more. I am 51 and I'm still flying and doing some fun stuff. You won't get paid as much as a regular commissioned officer (although it is close), but if you want to keep flying and not necessarily become a squadron commander, its not a bad gig.

 

[Randy Daytona]

First of all, if you want helos in the Marines, you have a 99% chance of getting helos (or tilt-rotors).

Both have benefits: Army you could eventually end up flying with the 160th which is a fantastic unit; the Army has more locations worldwide if you want to be stationed overseas. In the Marines, you could end up flying the President at HMX-1; the Corps will put you on a boat and you will see a multitude of ports.

However, there are some major differences. If you later want to work at anything beyond the tactical level of war (i.e., operational or strategic), you will need to be a commissioned officer. Also, it is easier to go from commissioned officer to warrant officer than the other way around.

Finally, if you want to wiggle the sticks for your entire career in the Marines or Navy, that usually means you do your active duty time and then transition to the reserves. I've known a quite a few guys who have gone 20+ years in the cockpit finishing as LtCol's and CDR's - and a few of those timed it just right to pick up squadron command and thus full bird (O-6).

Marine OCS will suck. Embrace the suck - the pain upfront will be worth it. Fly Marines.

 

[Ralph]

Having done both the commissioned side (Navy) and warrant side (Army) I can shed some light on this a bit. I have flown the same amount as a naval officer up to my first disassociated sea tour as I have as a warrant officer in the Army. I would imagine the USMC would be similar. For my disassociated sea tour as a flag staffer on a CCDG I flew a little bit but did not meet my minimums. Some guys in some jobs manage to make their minimums on a disassociated tour, but I would guess that less than half do. Since I haven't been in the Navy since 1996 you may want to check with some of the younger guys and some USMC guys for more up to date and relevant info.

As a full timer in the Army National Guard and a CW3 I make my semi-annual minimums in the first two months and frequently get double my annual minimums. Once out of flight school the warrants tend to get a little more flight time than the 2LTs and 1LTs, but not much more. By O-3 and CW2, the time starts to tilt a lot more in favor of the warrants, assuming they have made PC and are tracked.

We have guys in our guard unit who have reverted from O-3/O-4/O-5 to CW2 and a few that have commissioned from warrant to O-1. This is possible on active duty, but much less common.

From someone who has done both, I don't regret my time as a Navy O-1 thru O-4, but I enjoy being a warrant more. I am 51 and I'm still flying and doing some fun stuff. You won't get paid as much as a regular commissioned officer (although it is close), but if you want to keep flying and not necessarily become a squadron commander, its not a bad gig.

Being Guard your experience is going to be different? I was told that a WO isn't as good as it used to be in AD. They have a lot of sucky ground jobs.

 

[RobLyman]

Being in the Guard allows you to stay in the same place/unit almost indefinitely. AD guys move around more and get fewer chances to attend MOS producing schools. Because of that, the Guard also has a lot more warrants that have more than one track. For instance, I have tracked IP, MTP and ME. We have others tracked Safety and IP, TACOPS and MTP, etc... The more quals you have the more useful you are. With my quals I can pretty much gurantee I'll be near or at the top of the list for any missions that come up because I fulfill multiple roles. Sure, there are a great deal of additional responsibilities associated with that. I manage the QC shop at our facility and I am the company's maintenance officer. But I don't have any meaningless little sucky ground jobs. Those are reserved for the guys who aren't PCs or are not tracked or do not have multiple tracks.

I fly, I do maintenance trouble shooting and manage 4 guys in the QC shop. The guy next to me flys and does maintenance trouble shooting. The key to not being the fridge officer is to make yourself more valuable in the cockpit or elsewhere. I voluteer to do extra stuff. I am POC for aircraft upgrades, I go to other states to administer MTP check rides, I ferry new aircraft for the Army/Sikorsky. The commissioned guys are never the first choice for the fun stuff until the full time top warrants have had their opportunity.

Its a little mix of AD versus the guard, full time vs part time guard, and warrant vs commissioned officer. Probably the worst scenario for flying is part time guard as a commisioned officer. Drill weekends suck for you.

 

[cofranc736]

Thank you all for your input. After thorough research, all of the comments, and interviewing pilots in both branches I have decided to go through and apply for WOFT. I would eventually like to get into a commissioned officer role, but I just really want to focus on solely flying helos for the military at first. Another reason for this decision is that I've always dreamt of being in the 160th SOAR.

 

[Ralph]

This is only one persons opinion.

http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/civilian-woft-packet-question.203690/

 

[samb]

This thread is a couple months old but that last link is spot on. Flying Army helicopters is awesome fun when you get to do it on a regular basis but there are definitely dry spells and then your next few flights are playing catchup. The funds are drying up so in between major training events the flight schedule is pretty much IPs taking guys up for currency and annual requirements. I went WOFT in 2009 and got lucky enough to catch a deployment a few years ago and am sitting around 1100 hours. The guys that came in a year behind me have about half that time. The hours just aren't what they were 5 years ago.

That said, I wouldn't trade my time in the Army for anything. I will be surprised if I ever find better flying in the rest of my career, which unfortunately will not be in the Army. We turned in our aircraft a while back to get shredded for scrap and the majority of scout pilots are out of jobs or will be soon. I think the future of Army Aviation looks pretty good though, but be aware that they are dropping fixed wing on flight school students now so there's a small chance you might get stuck flying a King Air.

 

[Ralph]

What is day to day life like for a WO? Are you seeing less deployment?

 

[highside7r]

there's a small chance you might get stuck flying a King Air.

Big Army paid for my ATP, so I'm ok "stuck flying a King Air".
Ralph, not really combat, but Europe and Korea deployments for most CABs. Day to day varies from unit to unit for the WOs and additional duties. I've never had it quite as bad as your linked post, but pretty close... it's a different Army now. Many changes in my 10yrs since my switch from the Navy. Doing it over again I would go the RobLyman route and check Guard/Reserve slots.

 

[HAL Pilot]

, but be aware that they are dropping fixed wing on flight school students now so there's a small chance you might get stuck flying a King Air.

Can't see a downside to this....

 

[RobLyman]

Deployments are still in the mix for the guard. We are doing another one soon (not to Europe or Korea) which makes it 4.5 years since we returned from our last. Not bad , but it sucks for those who have another outside job.

The full time guard/reserve side is a great gig, but there are some drawbacks:
1) It is really hard to get a full time slot. Timing is important. Attitude is REALLY important. Unlike the active duty, people stay in the same jobs for a LONG time, especially warrants. The guard rarely takes a chance on an outside entity. You'll have to be a superstar or they have to be desperate. In my case it was timing and more the latter than the former.
2) The pay is a little sub-par. GS-13 is great if you get it, but you have to wait for someone to die to get a GS-13 IP slot. My GS-12 pay is OK, but not nearly as nice as my pay when I go on orders. AFTPs and drill pay account for about $23k a year in addition to technician pay. So that is nice.
3) You still deploy to A-hole parts of the world in "austere" conditions.

On the positive:
1) I get to fly as much as I want
2) I get to do test flights, instructional flights and evaluation flights during the week
3) State missions can be cool and rewarding (fire fighting, live medevac, shipboard landings, aircraft fairy missions from Sikorsky, etc...)