I was wondering…
Nowadays the only way to advance ranks above a Seargant in the U.S military is to go to college, correct?
What if you have previous military experience from another country, say in the French Foreign Legion?
Do you mean have a degree or to have completed your education. I was under the impression that all US soldiers had to have completed a high school diploma or have in their grubby little mitts a certificate of education.
Although I cannot refute your question, I would ask why? Not all soldiers are academic but may be very able at knocking nails into wood. Just because they could not produce a 5000 word essay on how to knock nails into wood does not mean they are stupid, it just mean they are better at doing the hammering than writing about it.
On the other hand, I have known a number of officers who are light houses in deserts, one in particular who used 4 fire extinguishers on a vehicle fire before a Pte soldiers showed him how they should be used a put the fire out.
If a degree takes 3 years then a great deal of your SNCOs are going to be out of use for this time.
I believe an enlisted soldier can recieve a Battlefield Commission, but I’m not positive.
All members of the US army have to have finished high school, but all the officers require a college degree, which, like you said, would take 3 years.
I really don’t want to go to a college and learn about s*** that I’m never going to use in the Army
They do commision from the ranks via “Officer Candidate School” but direct-entry officers come almost exclusively from the Military academies (e.g… West Point) or from the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at civilian universities.
There was a recent debate on ARRSE as to whether this produced officers of similar quality to the British Standard Commissioning Course at Sandhurst. The general feeling was that there was a great potential for teaching inconsistencies between the various establishments and that cadets might either spend so long in training that they became "institutionalised while the training might not be intense enough to really test the students.
West point is 3 or 4 years long isn’t it? As they get a degree whilst there.
You can advance to the senior ranks of the Non-Commissioned Officer corp without college. But to be a First Sergeant or a Sergeant Major in the US Military, a college degree, preferably a four-year degree, is virtually (but not technically) necessary. While I was in, college courses, usually from a local community college stateside, were offered for free if you went part time and had it approved by your commander. If you want to make the US Army a career, then education is never a bad thing, and I strongly advise you to take advantage of the educational opportunities because it looks good on your 201-file when being considered for promotion. And the truth is, even NCOs can use some of the skills they pick up in a college courses relating to (for example) physics (weapons), biology (NBC/WMDs, medical) personnel, history, English composition, criminal justice (military police), political science (intelligence), computer science, etc.
Plus, taking college courses will show your commanders that you have initiative!