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Could any members of the PDF provide any examples of the advantages of being Other Ranks in the Army over being an officer? I'm sure there are plenty, perhaps its the courses open to you or the chances of getting overseas more often etc
well now more than ever you have to look at the long term picture, pension and promotion conditions are very good for officers (practically guaranteed commandant rank) college education for free etc. Good overseas prospects when you finish college (USAC).
However on the other hand if you are an other rank and are interested in your career you have excellent prospects for courses for overseas.
So with everything there are pro's and con's, you just need to decide what would appeal to you more
Alaska
Do the enlisted scum play the officers at rugby / football at any time during the year ? We have a tradition that there is a game just before christmas leave
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier - Samuel Johnson
apart from the easier ride- you never have to worry about paying your car insurance- ( Come on Kermit you know you want to)
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere***
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Alaska
Do the enlisted scum play the officers at rugby / football at any time during the year ? We have a tradition that there is a game just before christmas leave
The Officers and NCO's played against each other today in a game of soccer, which the Officers won.
Privates aren't allowed play against the NCO's and Officers because it would most likely end in a fight of some sort. Plus, we'd hammer the lot of them.
Like HH said, if I was to advise anyone on the choice between General Enlistment or a Cadetship, it'd be a Cadetship every time.
because who else would hold our towels and be there to wipe the sweat off our brow at half time-
Privates are allowed use the pitches when its dark and no one else wants them.
Privates know your place-
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere***
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The question you must ask yourself is "do you want to command or do you want to be commanded".
The officer will decide on what is to be done and the enlisted man is the one who is charge with doing it.
The question you must ask yourself is "do you want to command or do you want to be commanded".
The officer will decide on what is to be done and the enlisted man is the one who is charge with doing it.
RN,
You might be interested in watching a speech by Captain Patrick Hennessy at the Royal United Services Institute where he covers some very pertinent points- especially from 10 mins.+ in the 14 min.video. Patrick Hennessy was the youngest Captain in the British Army and saw service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of "The Junior Officers' Reading Club" and will also appear in the BBC series on the war in Afghanistan to be broadcast in June.
He is a credit to the British Army and here gives some modern thinking into the demise of the class system in the army and has some interesting thoughts on the capabilities of junior officers/Nco's.
A tech-savvy Oxford graduate of the iPod generation spends the day spaced out on a high-decibel, high-adrenalin activity that leaves him feeling that "nowhere else sells bliss like this". As for the chilled come-down after those hours of brain-tingling rapture, it resembles "the end of some massive night in a hardcore warehouse". What has this ultra-cool dude, who drops phrases such as "post-modern irony" as readily as he customises Amy Winehouse lyrics, been doing?
He has been commanding a platoon of the Grenadier Guards as they turn the firepower of the British army (Nato approvals and UN resolutions all present and correct) on Taliban ambushers in the parched badlands of Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, in May 2007. Mullah Omar's driver, it turns out, would not come home from that rave in one piece. "Something", this officer decides in the downtime after a near-orgasmic fire-fight, "was needed to shake us out of the dangerous enjoyment we were getting from it all."
Old thread I know, but here goes: as a young Officer, your service will alternate between short periods of command and long periods of staff work. As a NCM, you will spend most of your career in units, going on courses, exercises and deployments that most Officers have little chance of doing.
I don't know about your Army, but we have Commissionning-From-The-Ranks programs that permit a transfer for those NCMs who wish to do so. One of the programs is aimed at Sgt-Maj ranks, and permits to transfer directly to Capt. This is what I am doing this year, and I will be a Capt sometime in June. I am happy with this, as I have done many things in my first 27 years of Service that are very difficult for Officers to get, but commissionning now gives me new challenges for the last 10 years of my career.
"On the plains of hesitation, bleach the bones of countless millions, who on the very dawn of victory, laid down to rest, and in resting died.
Old thread I know, but here goes: as a young Officer, your service will alternate between short periods of command and long periods of staff work. As a NCM, you will spend most of your career in units, going on courses, exercises and deployments that most Officers have little chance of doing.
I don't know about your Army, but we have Commissionning-From-The-Ranks programs that permit a transfer for those NCMs who wish to do so. One of the programs is aimed at Sgt-Maj ranks, and permits to transfer directly to Capt. This is what I am doing this year, and I will be a Capt sometime in June. I am happy with this, as I have done many things in my first 27 years of Service that are very difficult for Officers to get, but commissionning now gives me new challenges for the last 10 years of my career.
Excellent news jungle congratulations
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier - Samuel Johnson
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