Best Army officer branch?

One way is to check and see which branches have bonuses for captains to extend. In 2009, civil affairs captains were given $10,000 to remain in civil Affairs for an additional 3 years.

PO3 (Join to see) which commissioning source will you come from?

https://www.rallypoint.com/command-post/how-do-i-choose-an-army-branch-a-framework?page=3&urlhash=4134317

MI: you may spend a lot more time on staff as a member of the S2/G2. There is vast opportunity for strategic assignments. At the tactical level you must manage the threat picture and figure out what is most important to you combat arms unit. Serving as an S2 for a logistics unit is challenging as you have to focus what everyone else ignores. You may lead a platoon if you go to an MI Company. You may command as an O3, O5 and O6. S2, XO, S3, Collection Chief, and G2 are some key assignments.

EN: mobility, countermobility, and vertical engineering will be what you do at company level. You'll be leading platoons like Assault & Obstacle, construction, and route clearance platoonsObstacles, survivability holes for fighting vehicles, breaching, SOSR, etc. as a field grade you are a staff officer planning these activities. If you have a hard engineering degree, you can do strategic level assignments with USACE building MILCON projects. You may command as an O3, O5 and O6. XO and S3 will be key billets as a field grade.

AV: as Company grade you'll fly and do additional duties in the unit. Lift, sling loads, internal loads Recon, Attack, theater support. As you get into Staff, planning flight Ops. Maintenance is its own world and XOs spend a lot of time tracking, predicting and worrying about it. Aviation assets must go through depot phase maintenance on a regular interval of flight hours. It greatly impacts flight Ops. You fly less the more senior you get. You Command as an O3/4, O5, and O6. You'll serve as a staff officer outside AV, both as an AV planner/SME and other missions. XO and S3 as a major.

IN: close with and destroy the enemy in close combat. You'll lead a platoon light, Stryker, air assault, airborne, or mech. Staff work as you progress like S3 Air. If your mech, maintenance and Gunnery are a whole different animal. XO, S3 will be your goal as a Major. You may command as an O3, O5 and O6.

FA: provide indirect fire support to maneuver. Targeting support. Lead a platoon in an Artillery battery (self propelled, tube, or missile) and/ or serve as a Forward Observer in a combat arms company. You may command as an O3 (battery), O5 (Battalion), and O6 (BDE or Divarty). Key assignments S3, XO, Fire Support Coordinator. Targeting, mops, and moes for lethal and non lethal targeting. Working with deep fires and joint assets like tacair, naval gunfire, etc.

In my opinion Armor.

I studied for a year to become an Infantry officer, but was commissioned in the AGC. When I figured out what had happened I resented it and made my superiors miserable by accomplishing admin tasks like I was Patton. By chance, I ended up in a Signal Corps officer's slot as Operations Officer in the USARPAC Strategic Communications Center. By the time I was done the general in charge of STRATCOM for the Pacific was encouraging me to apply for a branch transfer to Signal Corps and I was all for it. Signal is vital and immensely interesting and challenging. The experience helped me in my ultimate civilian career in computer technology.

OK, I enlisted Infantry and Commissioned Infantry. Combined Arms, Infantry and Armor, are where the rubber meets the road and to me, they are the REAL Army. Infantry is a tough challenge, but I enjoyed most of the time that I served.
That said, the two best jobs I had in the Army were as an Engineer. Company Commander of a Divisional Combat Engineer unit and Assistant Brigade Engineer (in Divisional Engineer units now, the Battalion Commander is the Brigade Engineer, but running a Battalion takes a lot of time, so the ABE does all the day to day planning) were the jobs I liked the best.

Considering your comment of "chase rank"..... You are a young middle class American, of course you want to get promoted in any career field! Promotion comes from hard work and getting results. That's the pride of taking care of a unit and making the unit successful. Military officership systems don't put a mechanism in place to not progress.... If you don't perform and progress, a selection board will pass you over. Two times none select, pack your bags and go home. I suggest you choose something that is diverse with multiple opportunities for assignment, and look at the selection rates per field.

Of course Field Artillery is the best. But you indicated a desire to work closely with soldiers it is a good choice. As a 2Lt you will be a Fire Direction Officer leading 3 other soldiers If you are in a Direct Support Bn then you will probably be a Fire Support Officer again leading 3 soldiers You will also be attached to either and Infantry or Armor unit As an FSO you will have to know maneuver tactics so you can use fires to best support the maneuver commanders intent. In my case I also was an FSO at I Corps Artillery planning SEAD for their Aviation BDE. Again a small team but in this job I coordinated with Marine, Air Force and Navy as well as Japanese and sometimes Korean Air and indirect fire assets

I went Aviation, and enjoyed every minute of it! Very fun and interesting work, great missions, and all of my very expensive training and equipment was paid for by the Army! And, I maxed out in flight pay before I retired, and got a huge retention bonus after one of my deployments. Well worth it.

We need all of them; look for career paths the interest you. The enjoyment of what you do in a branch makes it the best!

look into Air Force TACP/JTAC. You can continue to do the cool things, work in small numbers and gain rank up to LtCol while still being in a small, high speed organization. I switched over from Army to this 3 years ago and it is pretty outstanding. Had 7 years enlisted time and 15 as an O.