Should the Air Force bring back Warrant Officers?

<p>In the Marines we considered our WO's as the 'Mavericks' - they were the enlisted members (with a 2yr degree) that moved up into the 'officer' arena.&nbsp; They were the officers that understood the 'enlisted' because they had been one of them.&nbsp; There was a lot more respect given to the WO's because of this and they expected more out of us enlisted then a lot of the 'commission' officers did.&nbsp; This was partially due to their inside knowledge and background as a prior enlisted.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I had wanted to be a WO when I was in the USAF - but they had been eliminated way before I transitioned over from the USMC.&nbsp; I believe that the USAF should go back to the WO's and faze out the enlisted ranks of SMSgt and CMSgt.&nbsp; </p>

Sir, from what I was told from a friend and peer of mine, they were able to still submit a packet to request a WO rank in the AF today. &nbsp;Obviously their packet will come back denied, but the realization that requests can be still submitted in only gave me more questions. &nbsp;To me, I felt as if the WO ranks are in a "dormant" state rather than having it permanently closed.<div><br></div><div>Aside from that random comment I just gave, I can reply with saying that I see other services have generally more complete structures in leadership positions than not having them at all.</div><div>Case and point: Right now my chain of command up to our Squadron level has a (double-digit) number of people with important responsibilities. &nbsp;It's a top heavy leadership chain down to me and I am getting very questionable decisions along the way. I only say questionable because one leader gives me an order while later another leader comes to me and gives me a complete opposite order from the previous. &nbsp;My peers and I can't help but stand around and wonder what to do when we see this "Water-tower" chain-of-command in our duty section. &nbsp;This is where WO come in: They cover the gap and provide assistance of my superior officers' questionable calls while enforcing us to complete the mission.</div>

I have long advocated that too many commissions are handed out. I wondered why, for example, doctors and lawyers were commissioned. I felt they were excellent candidates for warrants. Super warrant ranks could be created to insure that pay levels would attract skilled specialists, but there was no need to hand out commissions to those who didn't need them to perform their duties.

To truly understand my logic one has to understand the ancillary rights and privileges as well as the duties and responsibilities that are associated with a commission. The duties and responsibilities in particular would tend to get in the way of a highly trained technician or professional who should be focusing on their skills.

It's interesting that I had no idea what those rights, privileges, duties, and responsibilities were until well after I was commissioned. No one explained them in OCS. Apparently they didn't mentioned them in ROTC or West Point either. None of the officers I met who were commissioned in those places were any more knowledgeable than I. I've looked just now on the Internet and have not yet found any reference to them. Interesting.

What are they? They're too numerous to list in detail (and I doubt if I could remember them all) but here's a couple of examples. Commissioned officers are authorized to administer oaths. This one fell on me with a vengeance inasmuch as I shared a hooch with our division reenlistment officer and I was frequently called upon to administer oaths of enlistment when he was out in the field campaigning to recruit more. Commissioned officers are authorized to notarize documents. There aren't any notaries public on the battlefield to legally authenticate documents that soldiers may be required to sign, especially for matters occurring back home. Commissioned officers are authorized to sign legal documents on behalf of ("For") commanders. For example, I signed countless orders issued under the name of the division commanding general. My NCOIC had to instruct me how when I was presented with my first one. (That was some surprise.) A commissioned officer is a limited agent of the United States. (I would need a semester in law school to explain that one.)

I hope that makes my point...

I'm all for it, especially in those AFSC's that require certifications such as Cyber.

Many questions still face the Army in the fair and correct implementation of the warrant officer. Where do they belong in the rank chart when it comes to duty rosters, boards (e.g. administrative action, courts martial, etc.), evaluations, housing authorizations, and wear and appearance of uniforms.

Even though the warrant officer grades have been in the mix for three years short of a century, some do not realize that the chief warrant officer (W2-W5) is a (fully) commissioned officer since 1986 by Title 10 U.S.C. For example, a Chief Warrant Officer 3 is rated as a field grade officer, assigned field grade officer tasks and is expected to perform at the level of a field grade. However, when it comes to housing assignments a CW3 is considered a company grade officer and not eligible for FG housing. The Navy and the Marine Corp have their own interpretations as well and differ in how they are viewed and utilized in their respective service.

So, the question is often, "is W3-4-5 equal to O4-5-6?" The answer is, "Yes, but…" No warrant officer out ranks a 2nd lieutenant, yet, a CW3 friend of mine was recently appointed interim battalion commander. Can a CW4 rate a major? Yes, technically and no, not really. If a CW4 is in a position where the major reports to him, he/she could be rated, but it may not add to the major's career to have a CW4 rater in his/her evaluation. These things are tricky at best and consequential at promotion time.

One more quick point of how warrant officer business gets confusing at times. In most foreign armed services (maybe all, I haven't researched it), the warrant officer is the highest enlisted grade. Other warrant friends of mine had sporadic trouble in collaborating with host country commissioned officers when they (US warrants) were put in charge of operations. The foreign officers would believe that they should be in charge by virtual of their commission and ran interference. It took a salty old warrant's belligerence to straighten out who was ACTUALLY in charge. Alternatively, a major or a lt. colonel in charge of the same operations instead of the CW3 or CW4 may have automatically solved the problem with rank pins alone. If the Air Force would decide to re-incorporate the warrant grades, a study of the other four services would have to be conducted to eliminate the inherited problems.

If you would care to read about the history of the warrant officer, the out-of-print book, "US Army Warrant Officers" is available for free at the WARRANT OFFICER HISTORICAL FOUNDATION. It begins here: https://warrantofficerhistory.org/Hist_of_Army_WO.htm#Index

I find it grossly irresponsible that the most technical service doesn't use technical officers. Warrants Fly, Command Ships, trouble shoot aircraft, mechanical engines, maintain battalions and brigades worth of Maintenance, and you will put an O-grade in its place? Not the best use of taxpayer funding. I honestly feel you got rid of WO's because the AF had a fear of them.

I suppose it would make sense to bring them back. Not sure in our current climate they would actually do it though. Like Maj Graham stated, putting them in UAV platform might make sense. Having also been a former MQ-1 pilot it would seem to be a better fit for warrants, especially on how many pilots we need to man 24/7 ops. As a pilot and an officer in the UAV we did not have enough relevant extra duty jobs for pilots in the squadron that create the OPR fodder. As an officer we are competing for promotion against other line O's that were able school in residence, where we were put on hold due to manning.

Warrants would be a good fit since there career paths would be to become experts in flying the system and prosecuting a mission. Their promotions would be based on their technical expertise versus being a good additional duty ranger. Have a small cadre of commissioned officers to fill ADO and Ops sup billets and be the top cover for the units operations.

I agree also you can put in jobs that require continuity and have them be technical experts that seem to be filled by a GS 11's through 13's. Where I work as a contractor we have a few GS-13's that do what junior Captains would normally do. This would perfect for a warrant.

I think it should be limited to specific careerfields like pilots and RPa operators. The Army uses E-4's to fly armed Grey Eagles. Why do we need to have 0-3's and 0-4's flying similar airframes and struggling to find followon leadership assignments?

IMO, they should've never gotten rid of them. Between WO and SrA/Sgt, I'm not sure which was the worse decision.

I say yes. The main reason for me is that we are losing officer pilots at a rate that I don't think we can keep up. We are losing officers period. A lot of them are leaving because of quality of life. If we were to have Warrants that fly,we could make all the drone pilots Warrants and even some of the fixed wing pilots warrants. It would fill a gap that we desperately need filled. They would fly and maybe take on some additional duties at the squadron level but their primary duty will be to keep the planes in the air. Warrants could also run support units freeing officers up for other duties. Just my two cents.