What is the difference between “enlisted” and “officer?” This question is not as simple as it looks. In simplest terms, the enlisted are the 82% of the US military who are not commissioned officers (per the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics). Enlisting only requires a high school diploma or GED, whereas generally (because there are exceptions) a military member must have a college degree and most commissioned officers will have completed the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college or will have graduated from one of the US federal military service academies (The US Military Academy at West Point, New York; the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland (which also graduates commissioned US Marine Corps officers); or the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado (which also graduates US Space Force Officers; and most other countries’ military’s have some equivalent to these). According to Indeed.com, “Enlisted service members are members of the U.S. military who meet specific requirements and agree to perform certain duties. Typically, enlisted personnel join the military at a younger age than officers, since those in the enlisted ranks are only required to hold a high school diploma or GED.

Enlisted personnel receive intensive and specific job training for a particular role, which many veterans leverage into civilian jobs after completing their contract with the armed forces.” (“Enlisted vs. Officer Ranks in the Military: A Complete Guide,” www.indeed.com, Published Feb 22, 2021, updated Dec 1, 2021). The term “contract” is important. Enlisted serve for set enlistment periods at the end of which they may be able to entire into an addition term up to a certain point at which they can retire. Commissioned officers, other than meeting a service commitment of a certain length of time, generally in exchange for having been provided education and training by the government, can serve for as long as they like until they retire (and there are mandatory ages at which they must retire based upon the rank they attain) or unless they elect to resign their commissions. Service members can also be forcibly discharged as the result of misconduct.

Another other big difference, according to Indeed.com, is that commissioned officers “receive training in that field and provide supervisory support to the enlisted personnel who perform specific jobs for the organization.” In even more general terms, enlisted members are generally specialists who work for commissioned officers who are generalists. That said, while is a decent rule of thumb, it is also simplistic. There are commissioned officers who are specialists (medical and legal professionals for instance) but even they eventually move into purely supervisory positions as they gain rank. Also, as enlisted gain rank, they become non-commissioned officers who exercise supervisory and management duties, many of whom have college degrees—roughly 5.1% in the Air Force for instance (www.afpc.af.mil/News). (As an aside, many enlisted personnel do use the veterans benefits to obtain college degrees after they leave active service, so the percentage increases for veterans vs. active duty.) There are also Warrant officers, some of whom may be commissioned, and some of whom have a “warrant.” The distinction is a legal one—a commission allows an officer to exercise certain authorities that enlisted, and warrant officers are not legally permitted to perform. One of the most important of these is that commissioned officers can be commanders, though not all are, and being a commander gives an officer extensive authority over those under their command and the functions they perform. An end result of this is that officers and enlisted approach situations, problems, even people, differently.

One of the most obvious distinctions between enlisted and officers, however, is financial as the Fiscal Year 2022 US military pay chart below shows (this is the base pay per month and does not include additional non-taxable allowances and benefits that military members also receive).