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:
“I’ll sing you a new ballad, and I’ll warrant it first-rate,
Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate;
When they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate
On ev’ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev’ry noble gate,
In the fine old English Tory times;”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1890)
“A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)