I've been wondering about the rank ladder in the Marines, as well as other branches of the armed forces, but mainly Marines. Is there a thread here that specifies that? If not, can anyone help me out here? Where do you start? What's the chain, like Private to what to what to what? Do officers start out as Privates?


I'm so totally clueless here it's not even funny.

Ok first off no not all officers start off as privates. If they did maybe we would have some better officers. Rank structure is broken up into enlisted, Non commisioned officer, warrant officer, and Officer. thats the 4 catagories, and every rank in one branch has a corresponding one in the others for the most part. It is all on a scale of E and O for enlisted and officer.
Army goes as such
E1 Private
E2 Private has insignia for rank though.
E3 Private First Class
E4 Specialist or Corporal, one is a NCO the other isnt.
E5 Sergeant
E6 Staff sergeant
E7 Sergeant First Class
E8 Master Sergeant, or first Seargeant
E9 Seargeant major also known as god

01 2nd lieutenant
O2 1st lieutenant
O3 Captain
O4 Major
O5 lieutenant colonel
O6 Colonel
O7 Brigadier General
O8 Major General
O9 lieutenant general
O10 General
And then in between the officer and enlisted comes warrant officers, but they are kinda hard to explain really, especially to someone uninitiated into the system some.

Ah. cool. Thanks, man. *saves info to hard drive*

http://www.dfas.mil/money/milpay/pay/01-2002.pdf