64gunpilot
Registered User
What is the criteria for pay? Socio-economic status? Pay GIVES you socio-economic status. I know many West Pointers, Naval and Air Force Academy, and ROTC Grads who began life in a lower social strata than I did so don't even pull that lame Horse$hit on me. In America, you are what you remake yourself to be. As a CW3 I made more money than an 0-4 due to our bonus structure. As a CW4 it's not even close. I turned down the opportunity to go "Commissioned" because it was not a fiscally sound decision. So I decided to fore-go my dream of Command and followed instead the moral imperatives which drive a provider for a family of 7 to choose the financial benefit of remaining a Warrant. I still enjoy the role of the "Old Sage" However. I serve as an Instructor Pilot, and mentor to junior Warrants, lieutenants, Captains, and Majors. I relish my role as an Advisor to senior leaders, and cherish the high esteem with which I am held by my Warrant and Commissioned contemporaries. Something a Warrant in Naval Aviation may never experience if attitudes such as yours remain the same. Now, I understand we are comparing Apples to Oranges when discussing the Warrant programs of our Services. New Warrants entering The Navy Program will forever be upside down in terms of flight experience and pay, and will be limited in terms of the airframes they will be allowed to fly - UNLESS, the Navy adopts a system similar to the Army's. Army Warrant Officers will - as things now stand - always have more flight time at the 5-7 year mark and beyond than their Commissioned contemporaries (due to the professional development cycle for Commissioned Officers). Additionally, there is no restriction from the type of airframes available. We can fly Attack, Cargo, Medevac VIP, Assault, and Fixed Wing. We can be Instructor Pilots, Safety Officers, Maintenance Test Pilots, Experimental Test Pilots and Army Astronauts. Very rarely do we get saddled with admin jobs in personnel, supply, logistics or operations - only when there is a local shortage of Commissioned guys. We receive flight bonuses our Commissioned contemporaries do not and flight incentive pay which outpaces our Commissioned brethren's due to flight hour gates which are difficult for them to achieve.
I totally agree with your guest speaker's emphasis on service, but to think that you have to be an "Officer" in the traditional sense to embody those qualities is ignorant at best. Patriots and Leaders are not made in OCS or WOCS, they are born; genetically or environmentally predisposed for success when opportunities like OCS or WOCS present themselves. I really believe that the resistance by some in this forum to embracing WO pilots is based on a lack of experience with the same. Another poster touched on a key point in an earlier comment when they addressed the fact that the Army Warrant program had been around so long that it had worked out the short-comings and was now a smooth running program. When one understands the personnel make-up of those early Aviation units it becomes much easier to see that the shortcomings had nothing to do with the Warrants, but rather, the lack of "Home-grown" Commissioned Leaders. What many don't realize is that in the early days of Army Aviation (Post Korean War), the Commissioned Officers who commanded Flight detachments, Companies and Squadrons were NOT Aviators by "Trade". When My Uncle and his fellow Flyboys left the Army to start their own Air Force in 1947, Army Aviation was limited mostly to Artillery spotting, VIP, and medevac missions. All that was left to man these flight detachments were Artillery, Infantry, Armor, and other Branch Officers who rotated in and out of the Aviation units as a part of their professional development. Warrant Officers had long been in use in the Army as technical Experts in various specialties, so when Army Aviation began to ramp up in scope during the Vietnam War, Warrants were an easy solution to the manning challenges Commanders faced for the new Air Mobile Divisions. The Warrants were the only Officers who spent their entire career in these Aviation units. Out of necessity, they became the Instructor Pilots and Air Mission Commanders. By virtue of those roles, they provided the continuity and technical expertise that ensured operational success. By the time the Vietnam War concluded, those WO1s who cut their teeth in the hot LZs of South East Asia were 2-3000 hour CW2s. Due to the nature of combat operations, and pilot shortages due to losses, those Commissioned Officers who pulled "professional development" tours had flight logs which compared to the Warrants, but after the War it was the Warrants that kept flying the Lion's share of a unit's flying hour program. The CW2s became CW3s and CW4s with upwards of 5000 hours. They became the "Old Salts" and mentors in Army Aviation - Literal and figurative Gods in the eyes of their commisioned contemporaries. It wasn't until the mid 1980s that Army Aviation became a Branch in it's own right and began "Growing" it's own Commissioned Officers. By the late 1990's the Aviation Branch Leaders had begun to shift the focus from Warrants being the sole Subject Matter Experts to the Commissioned Officers being expected to be equally proficient and knowledgeable in all aspects of tactics, doctrine, and airframe employment. Prior to Desert Storm, it was rare to have a Commissioned Officer on orders as a Pilot-in-Command. Now, it is a virtual imperative for promotion to Command assignments above the Company level. New Warrants in the Army will still have an edge on their Commissioned counterparts with regards to total flight time and experience due to the fact that they retain the vast majority of Flight Instructor and Maintenance Test Pilot slots. But most of the distinctions are now gone. We are now more like the Air Force model which has Flight and Command tracks. We are all Commissioned and Branch Officers. We have a pay system that rewards those who want to fly initially, then tilts in favor of the Command track as careers near the 20 year retirement window. It is for these reasons that I'm on record here as being opposed to the Warrant Officer rank in the Army - simply because in the Army, the Warrant Officer has evolved into a rank that is different in name only. But I'm not complaining to loudly, lest someone think I don't appreciate my socio-economic status!
