Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Wednesday's Wits


For those of you that do not know about the military Warrant Officer Program, it is great and wonderful.  I present the following definition: 

A military officer, usually a skilled technician or a helicopter pilot, intermediate in rank between a noncommissioned officer and a commissioned officer, having authority by virtue of a warrant. 
 
My annual evaluation reports always included the phrase "Technical and tactical expert..."  In modern parlance, because Warrant Officers have now become commissioned and are branched, we refer to the "other" officers as RLO's or Real Life Officers.  The biggest difference is that Warrants are on a technical track, doing the same thing at more complex levels for an entire career, while RLO's are on a command track, hoping to one day be Chief of Staff.  The only services which still employ Warrants are the Army and Marine Corps.  On a side note, there are some Warrants who inadvertantly find themselves in command positions, some by design, and some because the higher RLO can't find a subordinate RLO that he trusts enough to get the job done.
 
I found a sheet that kind of defines the attitudes of Warrant Officers.

Warrant Officer 1 --- Glad he isn't anyone of these:

 


 
Chief Warrant Officer 2:  Says "Watch this".  Minutes later, at the hospital....


Chief Warrant Officer 3:  Shows up late to formation with an offensive coffee mug, unshined boots, and outlandish "Sam Eliott" mustache.  Nobody says anything because they don't recognize him.  They haven't seen him in weeks, but his outbox is always piled high with work, usually grease & dirt smeared.


Chief Warrant Officer 4 & 5:   The Tower and the Light Saber.   Nobody knows where they belong.  They know it.  Nobody knows what they do.  They know it.  so they leave for a 10 day pass to go hunting that they awarded themselves. 


It's good to be the king.

8 comments:

blue said...

Alan - the navy has Warrant Officers in grades 2 to 5.

The Air Force does not.

blue said...

anyone heard from Spider since he chained his car to a fire hydrant on Sunday?

Schteveo said...

That's pretty funny alan, and correct from what I knew.

I only dealt directly with a couple of WO's in the Navy. One was an arrogant jerk as a CPO. He became an insufferable, arrogant jerk and overbearing asshole as a WO.

We just guessed the additional pains in or asses was 'awarded with his warrant'.

The other WO is the one who killed MY military career. He was a foul mouthed, drunken excuse for a sailor. The only way to survive him was to get in line in the office and take him out once or twice a month and get him loaded. I was stationed on a Destroyer Tender which meant I ate the majority of my meals art home, but was ineligible for comrats. Even IF I HAD considered keeping him drunk as 'my' part of the rotation, I was too busy working a P/T job to feed my family to keep that jackass happy.

He and I sparred for 18 months, rejected every transfer request, until I went over the Command and Squadron level and sent a letter to my Senator, Jesse Helms. Next thing I know, I'm on the fast track to fat boys exiting the Navy. And they screwed with my Re-Enlistment codes so I couldn't get back in.

OH well. As with all things there are good ones and bad ones. I just never met the good ones!

alan said...

Sorry to hear that Schteveo, But you are correct, there are always good ones and bad ones. I saw the promotion board results for my year group a couple weeks ago. Of the 5 guys I knew on the list, 2 definitely deserved it. 3, I was surprised that they were selected for CW4 6 years ago. maybe they spent their pay raises on taking the boss out?

I was unaware the the Navy still had WO's serving. I thought that they "promoted" them all to limited duty officers.

I am going to assume that somebody, somewhere thinks I am one of the good ones. The army asked me to come back out of retirement.....that or they just can't find someone willing to take this kind of punishment for even longer.

Hurricane Snorpht said...

I got served a warrant once. Den I kicked da cop in da balls and had to leave the state.

I was checking in on Ron and Spider and then late monday...... Nothing.

Schteveo said...

Haven't heard anything outta NYC. Even if they've got power, they may not have the interwebs stuff.

Anonymous said...

In 20 years in the Air Force the only warrant s I worked with were in SF, and they were a great bunch of guys, IMO far superior to most of the field grade O's I had the (dis)pleasure of dealing with. There was always grumbling of bringing WO's back to the Air Force but the regular commissioned force wasn't going to let that happen. "That is what you got Chief for" was always the retort.

Chicago Gash Munky said...

CowPile, ya'll meanyan never even been served an arrest Warrant?