Opinions needed on enlisting after college

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An E9 with 20 years time in service has a base salary of $4575 a month. An O3 with 6 years makes $4367. Now please tell me that a BDE CSM does less work than a battery commander and this pay is fair

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If you're still not understanding this, I'll try another analogy: A CEO must make more money than an assembly line worker. Do you see why?


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Lame analogy. A CEO has >20 years experience compared to a high school dropout lineworker. A penis with a degree cant just walk into a company and say "HEY! I'd like to be the CEO and make more money than people that have deicated their entire lives to this company". Your logic is severly flawed, do you see why?

[Voltron87]

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An E9 with 20 years time in service has a base salary of $4575 a month. An O3 with 6 years makes $4367. Now please tell me that a BDE CSM does less work than a battery commander and this pay is fair

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If you're still not understanding this, I'll try another analogy: A CEO must make more money than an assembly line worker. Do you see why?


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Lame analogy. A CEO has >20 years experience compared to a high school dropout lineworker. A penis with a degree cant just walk into a company and say "HEY! I'd like to be the CEO and make more money than people that have deicated their entire lives to this company". Your logic is severly flawed, do you see why?

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So why dont the E9's become 03's, if the pay is so out of whack?

[Pyromaniac]

sounds like a mistake to me. but also sounds like you're stuck on the idea.

As a general rule, the more education you have as an enlisted person, the more miserable you will be.

Once you enlist, you'll have a lot less control over your destiny in the military than you think. At least going in as an officer you are bringing your education to the table. Enlisted, they don't care that you've got an education...in fact, it's likely to work against you.

*shrug* my 2p

[Pyromaniac]

Not a perfect analogy, but enlisted = blue collar, officer = white collar.

So the E9 doesn't become an O3 for the same reason the guy who runs the paint line at Chevy doesn't become the plant manager. He's got a lot of years of experience, but not the right kind of experience. He has little/no education. He has a family and a life and obligations and a comfortable place in the world. Deciding to go OCS is like starting all over again...it'd be like quitting the job and going back to college and getting the business degree. And having to compete with all the young guns.

...as to the original analogy, or criticism of it: Nobody with a college degree just walks in and becomes a CEO...obviously. But the penis-with-a-degree has got a shot at it, someday, many years of work from now. Whereas the line worker doesn't. And never will.

Whether you think that's "right" or "fair" or "just" doesn't change the way it is.

[Voltron87]

Just a note, I don't know crap about the military, unlike many people in this thread who have actually served. So I might screw up names/what people do.



Your post makes sense. The thing I was getting at was, well there has to be a reason that enlisted guys don't become officers, since the officers with 3 years of experience earn what enlisted men with 15 earn. And for better or for worst, it looks like there is. The guys who become officers have training that enlisted guys don't, and in this capitalistic society people with skills that not many other people have earn more than other guys who do something thousands could do. Even if the guys who do something everyone else can do work really hard.


Also, if someone in the military has a real problem with that, it's a little weird that they're serving to protect a country where that hierarchy is deeply engrained. It happens in every facet of business/the workplace in this society, not just the military. Considering the how the military is a "shut up and do what youre told. now." kind of place, that philosophy is not really condusive to serving.

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The thing I was getting at was, well there has to be a reason that enlisted guys don't become officers

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It's rather difficult for an enlisted person without a degree to become an officer. The Army needs more higher ranked enlisted personel than they need another rinky dink 2LT. I guess you would have to serve to understand, but when you see your dumbass platoon leader never have a scuff on his boot because he spends all day in the ac and then drives home in his Lexus you kinda want punch someone in the face.

[Voltron87]

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The thing I was getting at was, well there has to be a reason that enlisted guys don't become officers

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It's rather difficult for an enlisted person without a degree to become an officer. The Army needs more higher ranked enlisted personel than they need another rinky dink 2LT. I guess you would have to serve to understand, but when you see your dumbass platoon leader never have a scuff on his boot because he spends all day in the ac and then drives home in his Lexus you kinda want punch someone in the face.

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reread my last post.

[Bigdaddydvo]

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The thing I was getting at was, well there has to be a reason that enlisted guys don't become officers

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It's rather difficult for an enlisted person without a degree to become an officer. The Army needs more higher ranked enlisted personel than they need another rinky dink 2LT. I guess you would have to serve to understand, but when you see your dumbass platoon leader never have a scuff on his boot because he spends all day in the ac and then drives home in his Lexus you kinda want punch someone in the face.

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From the wording of your post, I can conclude one of two things:

1) Your platoon leader(s) did not take their jobs seriously and did not give you the coaching/teaching/mentoring and general leadership that you deserved. Most PLs do. In each of my platoons, I was on the ground pulling maintenance/changing track etc w/the Soldiers-this is frankly the best part of being an LT and it's unfortunate that a select few of my peers wouldn't realize that.

2) You were a marginal Soldier, with a generally bitter attitude about his service, who never internalized things like the Army Values or the NCO Creed. Most professional and mature NCOs (and even senior E4s) understand deeply the nuances that separate them from the Officer Corps, (including pay/levels of responsibility). In fact, when I'd approach a good junior NCO about the possibility of a commission, with those who decline the answer is almost univerally "I don't want that responsibility" All of these NCOs I've served with seem to get it--why don't you?