"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

I think it's a hoot that a navy *warrant* officer should be
commissioned, given that the whole point of the "warrant" was to
create an officer who wasn't commissioned.

Do you find it a "hoot" that the Army also considers its senior warrnats to
be commissioned?


The British navy used to have warrant officers, and probably devised
the system. Thus the OED: "an officer in certain armed services
(formerly also in the Navy) who holds office by a warrant, ranking
between a commissioned officer and an NCO."

Are you sure that what's on your wall is a commission and not a
warrant? Both are pieces of paper.

Personally, it all makes sense to me. By considering some warrants as
commissioned officers you increase their range of capabilities without any
real negative effect (IIRC when this program began a few years back there
was rumbling from some in the warranted community that it would result in
dire consequences--none of which seem to have come to be). Why shouldn't a
CWO be able to take a sworn statement from a troop as well as any other
commissioned officer? Why shouldn't a CWO be able to command his A-Team
(there is now a WO slot in every SF A-Team) or detachment with the full
authority and privaledges of his commissioned counterparts? The WO's remain
the same technical specilaists they always were--they now just enjoy a bit
more authority in some areas.

Brooks

all the best -- Dan Ford
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