zlacker

>>aspenm+(OP)
> [...] the four executives will all attend the Army’s six-week Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia [...]

Sometimes known as "fork and knife school". I can't speak specifically for the Army, but a particular personal incident comes to mind.

When I attended AFROTC field training at Maxwell AFB, in a lot of ways it was a fairly typical boot camp experience, with roaming enlisted training instructors ready to very promptly and firmly correct any deviations from standard in a memorably expedient fashion (much less swearing than Full Metal Jacket, as it's the Air Force). One day during this fine summer camp I found myself on the receiving end of one such chewing out from a TI, for walking around the wrong side of a table in the dining facility.

It was in the midst of this comically scathing tirade (something about him threatening to crawl up my nose and living in my nightmares if I dared try it again) that this Technical Sergeant abruptly stopped, wheeled around and was about to tear into another hapless cadet that took the same detour I did. But instead, without a whit of the seething rage he was pouring out just a second before, he calmly patiently explained to this trainee that she was to take a different route, punctuating the instructions with a "right over there, ma'am". It was at that moment that I noticed that she did not have cadet insignia on her lapels, but captain's bars. It turns out she was a proper M.D., fresh from med school, directly commissioned and immediately outranking the sergeant that was giving me the what-for and her polite guidance.

So by Direct Commissioning, it is indeed direct.

>>snerbl+Fe1
I remember my grandfather’s descriptions of WWII in the pacific. One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.

The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he was a doctor.

Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.

>>duxup+yf1
> One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.

My grandfather landed at Tarawa. He only talked about privately, it to family members that were in the service.

> The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.

From my experience, military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service (unlike most military jobs, where it's assumed that you know little to nothing of the job), the direct commissioning training is mostly so they can function and fit in that environment.

>>snerbl+Dg1
Yeah the Marine talked openly about it maybe a handful of times with me, I got the feeling he left a lot out, even then they were never happy stories. I got the feeling he carried his experiences like a weight his entire life and he didn't ever describe it in any good terms, none of it. Didn't help that he lost his brother (also a Marine).

>>duxup+3h1
I think it’d be fairly odd to describe any experience in which you have actual combat experience in a positive light.

At least, my experiences talking with a combat medic and the weather corps couldn’t be more different.

>>Aeolun+Jh1
My great uncle was a Naval supply officer in WWII, and wrote a bunch of letters to my grandmother. He never left the ship during battles, so he couldn't have had as intense a combat experience as others. But he describes his time at the battle of Iwo Jima, killing Japanese soldiers who were swimming at the ship with explosives, and watching people die as Japanese fighters strafed the decks. What was interesting to me is that he doesn't particularly characterize it in a positive or negative light, but mostly just as completely surreal. He several times says he felt like he was in a movie. Unfortunately, he died before I was born and he never wrote anything after the war was over about his war experience. So I don't know how the reflection of time effected his thoughts on it.