I *completely* understand that there needs to be a hierarchy, but there seems to be a big discontinuity between these different classifications. When I was in the Navy, I noticed this extended to eating accommodations, and even how ships were built (different hallways for enlisted and officers to walk down). This may have made sense “back in the day”, but why does this separation continue to exist today?
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You are right about the Navy being very rank conscious. I was in the Air Force during the Alaskan oil spill and on an AF team writing software to help manage the cleanup. My Colonel, an airman (E-3), and myself (E-6) were visiting on the USN Juneau which was docked in Valdez Alaska.
Our Colonel was invited to dine with the admiral and ship’s captain in the officers mess (fancy officer eating). I was going going to be sent to the petty officer’s mess (middle rank eating), and the airman sent to eat in the seaman’s mess (bottom rank eating). The colonel declined and said he wanted to eat with us to talk work, could all three of us compromise and eat in the petty officer’s mess?
They told him there was no way they could allow a low ranking E-3 to eat in the petty officers mess, so the three of us went down to the seaman’s mess. The navy would rather an Air Force Colonel, equal in rank to the ship’s captain, eat in bottom rank mess, rather than allow a low ranking guy to eat in the middle mess.
So down we went, we ate a decent meal. But the Colonel didn’t scrape his plate right, so the guy on the other side of the window, not knowing he was a full bird colonel, yelled at him to scrape his plate right. The colonel laughed and scraped his plate.
That, BTW, is how that crazy, former F-4 pilot, crazy man Colonel got people so fanatical about doing good software work. He was out-of-control crazy in some of his ideas, but he was very devoted to the people who worked for him and we knew it.
**tl;dr the navy would rather shit on a high ranking officer, than allow a low ranking guy even the slightest perk beyond his rank.**
The US Navy retains a lot of the culture of the Royal Navy with “officer’s country,” “mess cranks,” and making a hole.
Several reasons.
1. The private sector has a management and labor divide which extends into the social sphere. Members of management are subtly or openly told not to be seen as too close to members of labor, or they will be viewed as compromised (since their roles are seen as inherently antagonistic at times). The military version of management/labor is officer/enlisted. They take the social taboo against fraternization to an extreme level; it’s literally a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (in certain instances).
2. This, by the way, is also the reason that officers who were prior enlisted have an odd reputation in the military. They’re often given more deference on technical matters (fairly or unfairly, because one of the dumbest officers I had was prior enlisted from the exact same unit we were in), but somewhat socially estranged. Think Rudolph the Reindeer; they don’t always get to play in all the reindeer games that West Point/Annapolis grads do. They still have a whiff of the working class about them.
3. The military is the closest to descendant to medieval nobility/serf relations that exists in the modern Western world today. That’s how officers are entitled to perks that no sane company would tolerate in the private sector, and it’s also why there is a very, very real (albeit technically unofficial) difference in how rulebreaking is punished.
4. The nice term for it is “different spanks for different ranks”; there are example after example of how officers will only face career consequences for misconduct (reprimand, lack of promotion, forced exit from service) that will result in actual prison time for enlisted committing the same crime. Look at Abu Ghraib; enlisted who committed prison abuse were sentenced to years in jail; officers who oversaw or in cases ordered it (or were at the very least aware of it) faced official and unofficial career consequences but no jail.
The Navy, which does hold onto some antiquated traditions harder and longer than any other service, tends to be the worst at all of the above, which is why wardrooms, chief’s mess, the sanctity of the chief’s coffee cup, and other forms of silliness still exist.
It’s continually being lessened through military generation after generation, largely due to the volunteer military. It’s harder and harder to get modern 18 year old Americans to tolerate the kind of medieval he’s-literally-a-better-person-than-you-because-he-has-a-degree culture that the military has. And the stark difference in education and income levels is flattening, as more enlisted obtain college degrees (and more of the officer corps is made of prior enlisted).
So it is gradually getting better; I’ve noticed it’s better now than when I was in, and it was better when I was in than when my father was. But there’s still plenty of sickening bullshit that’s tolerated.
Officers used to be people of influence. People who were perceived to actually mattered in society
Lower enlist were basically slaves. Common people with no land titles. Often conscripts.
There’s no reason to even have officers in a modern world, but we still do because it’s just how it’s always been done, and the treatment difference is just another holdover.
All you need is to have span of control. You don’t need this haves and have not rank structure BS of the old world.
It’s called ego. From what I saw when I was in the army, it amazes me that we can fight a war with any effectiveness. All of the lifers were ass kissers as that’s what it took to get promoted. Most were incompetent at their job. Most of the good people got out after their first enlistment simply because they couldn’t put up with the stupidity any longer.
Perhaps something to do with the Geneva Convention? I remember my (US) military ID always had a code/rating for Geneva Convention purposes if I became a POW. I _think_ there are guidelines to what you can assign to each category (as to labor or whatever), as well as it having chain of command purposes for the POWs. Totally going by memory here.
Except the soviets who executed officers and any government officials. At the Polish ones.
My grandfather was a survivor of Stalingrad. He was a captain but found a corporal uniform. Spent seven years in a soviet work camp before he was released.
Politics. The military is very political. The higher you rank up there the note political it gets as well. Military is also not logic based. It’s tradition based. People will literally stand in front of a gym for over an hour just standing there instead of going and getting the job done already.
They also may equate rank to maturity even if it doesn’t make “logical” sense. You can’t make the mistake of the military being logical. The government in general will spend billions in things that actually van hurt more than help and on old hardware and tech in general in many cases. If you want change someone’s career can be over before you would be able to see anything at all.
It isn’t just officer and enlisted, but enlisted higher ranks etc. too. They don’t want a E-5 hanging with a E-2 even if they are the same age and maturity and it doesn’t even matter officer or enlisted if you even have completely different jobs and fields and would never work together in a chain likely ever. It’s tradition and part of joining I’d to give up a part of adulthood. If you want complete freedom you need to be a civilian. If you join you give thar up.
In the Vietnam war, a soldier in the north would get a break, squat with a plate of fish, bowl of rice, and cup of tea. Beside him, also squatting with fish, rice, and tea, could be a general.
The US lost that war to farmers who proved to be better soldiers, and officers, than the US. Despite the many force multipliers and huge wealth the US had, the Vietnamese were not saddled with a caste system, or its extensive costs.
The Russian military has a caste system like the US, and similar costs. I suspect that early last February every unit at every level in every branch reported 100% readiness, even if their readiness was zero. The caste system bottlenecks the flow of information upwards and downwards.
I once got to view the USMC on their parade ground, where the privates kissed the corporal’s ass, the corporals kissed the sergeant’s ass, and on and on to the colonels kissing the general’s ass, and the general kissing the wife’s ass.
A Secretary of State a few years ago complained about his neighbor across the street a general. While the general enjoyed a gardener, chauffeur and chef he was microwaving TV dinners, and he was his boss! It’s baked into the system generals are elites. Maybe cause they won’t rebel?
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