He left active service as a Captain USA and came back as a CWO? He must’ve pulled some mighty long strings to do that ...
I’m not from a military family and don’t appreciate the significance of returning as a CWO. Would you splain it in simple terms for us non military folks?
And my congratulations & thanks to the CWO for serving our country for so long and so well!
For many of us that got caught in the Reduction in Force after Vietnam we were offered WO2 if we wished to stay in the Army. That was the offer for a lot of captains.
It was '78, Mr. Peanut was President. Officer's slots, even in the Guard, were not easy to come by. While the enlisted ranks had openings, lots of draft induced enlistees were finishing up their 6 year commitment about that time. (I was in the Air Guard at that time, and we had one of those useless slugs, and he was *my* responsibility, sort of. There were two officers and two enlisted, one an NCO, in the engineering section, I was the junior officer, so I got tasked to ride herd on our draftsman, which was the guy who insisted on wearing a wig to drill (which was allowed at the time as long as the appearance of the wig met the regs.) Fortunately there wasn't much drafting to be done at that time, so as long as he kept to himself, and nominally did his "homework" (study for skill level upgrade, which he cared less about, since he really was a draftsman in his civilian job), and came to the minimum number of drills, we pretty much left him alone. I think he felt cheated once the draft had ended, but he was stuck with that six year reserve/guard commitment. The rest of the unit, was either veterans of active duty, or post draft true volunteers. We got the jobs done. We were an electronics engineering and electronics squadron, and often supported the active duty military in our area. In fact one job I oversaw, kinda sorta since the NCOs actually oversaw the troops, was one I'd help arrange when I was on active duty. Even though I spent 1 1/2 years in the AF Reserve while a grad student in between.
Anyway, I expect that while officer slots were hard to come by, because of all the folks RIFed in the Ford and Carter era downsizing of the active force wanting to fill those slots, Warrants and enlisted slots were not at the same premium. A warrant slot meant he got to fly, but didn't have to put up with most of the Mickey Mouse additional duties that the officers had and have to do. (The same is not true of non-flying warrants, at least not now, as I understand it at least) The Air Force retired it's last warrant, actually the Air Guard, at least a decade ago, and most were gone long before then.