How many of us had trouble distinguishing the rank of approaching commissioned, non-commissioned or warrant officers on field uniforms??

I just used the when in doubt Salute. Most would not complain.

When I was in training (AIT) at Ft. Lee, VA I saw some ranks that totally stumped me. I, of course, had all the Army ranks committed to memory and I was at least generally familiar with those of the other services, but these were entirely different, and appeared to be totally non-regulation. One dress uniform, as I recall, had five or six big silver stars not only on the shoulders, but even on the lapels of the dress coat as well as other decorative clusters and ribbons that I didn't recognize. Knowing that I was still pretty green, and thinking I must have missed something important, I asked one of our company NCOs. He laughed, and then calmly explained that next door was a training facility that was often attended by military members from Central America and other nations friendly to the United States. All sorts of unusual variations were possible. His advice stuck with me for the rest of my military career:

"When in doubt, salute it."

Saluting an NCO is rarely a problem but failing to salute an officer is almost always going to cause trouble. It's safer just to throw up a salute and hope for the best.

Know what's the worst? When older SPC/E4's have large rank on their OCP's. From a distance they look like LTC's. I've saluted E-4's before at rank-heavy installations.

No problems at all.

While in the cav we had bareas with a cab flash and our rank in brass. Some troopers would salute us as all they saw was the gold flash. We would replay at ease we will be in the area all day

SGT Groth,

I can't recall ever having trouble distinguishing between a 2dLt and WO. The main reason being I knew all the officers at both battalion and regimental level and knew there were no WOs assigned to those particular commands. My limited career did not take me to the higher reaches of varied joint or unified commands where I might likely run into a WO I didn't know.

I never had an issue with officers (warrant or commissioned) because they all rate a salute and a "sir" anyway. My main issue has always been SGM vs 1SG and SPC vs LTC. Those can be difficult to tell apart from a distance or in the dark, however its generally easy to figure from their age wether its a SPC or LTC

I never had any problem recognizing the ranks and knew what every branch of the service used for Officers, Warrant Officer and enlisted. I do think the collar is a lot better place to put rank insignia than the middle of the chest where esp in combat gear it may not be able to be seen at all.

Marines do not salute in the field.