A warrant officer (WO) is an officer in a military organization who is designated an officer by a warrant, as distinguished from a commissioned officer who is designated an officer by a commission, or from non-commissioned officer who is designated an officer by virtue of seniority.
The rank was first used in the (then) English Royal Navy and is today used in many other countries, including the Commonwealth nations, and the United States. Outside the United States they are effectively senior non-commissioned officers with long military experience, although technically in a cadre of their own between non-commissioned officers and commissioned officers. Warrant officer is a rank between flight sergeant and pilot officer in the Royal Air Force. However, warrant officers in the United States are technical leaders and specialists, and chief warrant officers are commissioned by the president of the United States and take the same oath as regular commissioned officers. They may be technical experts with long service or direct entrants, notably for U.S. Army helicopter pilots.
Read more about Warrant Officer: History: Origins in The Royal Navy
Famous quotes containing the words warrant and/or officer:
“Here’s to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here’s to the widow of fifty;
Here’s to the flaunting extravagant queen;
And here’s to the housewife that’s thrifty.
Let the toast pass,—
Drink to the lass,
I’ll warrant she’ll prove an excuse for the glass.”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)