SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a short article, the US Naval Institute reports that the Navy will bring back the Warrant Officer-1 rank for certain specialists:
After a 44-year absence, the rank of warrant officer-1 will return to the Navy in 2019 for cyber specialists, a move signifying the great lengths the service must take to retain talent and fill leadership roles in an increasingly tight labor market.
The return of warrant officer-1 (W-1) — discontinued by the Navy in 1975 — is both a Navy bid to keep highly sought-after computer technicians and is indicative of the greater challenge facing the service as it seeks to meet growing recruiting and retention targets.
[...] Only a small number of enlisted personnel will qualify for W-1, the pay still will not match what the private sector offers, and the Navy will still face tough recruiting and retention challenges. However, those sailors who do qualify for W-1 will be the ones the Navy hopes will consider remaining in the service longer because [the] rank offers something the private sector can't as easily match — a quicker path to management positions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 16 2018, @12:37AM
" People who can't manage at all generally aren't recommended for promotion above E-3 "
Now that's one of the biggest loads of horseshit I've heard about the military in years. They give away E-5 to anybody because that's right about the time when a person's first enlistment is up, so they get "selected" for JNCO as a carrot dangled in front of their faces. I've seen total shitbags get "selected" for it over and over again. I've seen shitbags who did absolutely nothing approach 10 years of service as E-4's get offered E-5 because the government didn't want to pay them the ten-grand separation pay for reaching high-year tenure* (and boy, was that guy pissed, because he hated being in the military and was looking forward to that 10-grand and involuntary honorable discharge).
The only W.O.'s I've seen were army guys who were too stupid to go to college but hungry-enough to be great soldiers.
Being a W.O. would be a cushy job for pure shore-duty, but not much people want to spend their lives on a boat not being able to (legally) fuck, needing an intrusive security clearance (often all the way up to TOP SECRET) to do fleet security, with only South-American and East-Asian prostitutes to fuck and get diseases from. Also, surface-navy are some of the most backstabbing passive-aggressive rat-bastards known to the military. Surface Navy have to lose sleep doing stupid-ass drills and watch all the time. As far as being sniveling punks they're even worse than Air Force, and that's pretty bad. They get even worse when they reach E-7 and above, when the competition for slots is intense and the backstabbing intensifies.
* High-year tenure is when the military (Air Force, at least) politely forces you out with full-benefits because you're too much of a shitbag to advance in rank in a timely manner