From time immemorial, it's been a time honoured pastime where the Windsor writ runs large, to tease ever so gently, our cousins who dwell in the home of the brave and the land of the free.
And since time immemorial, (or certainly after the British burnt the White House in August 1814), the cousins usually rise to the occasion.
Sometimes our cousins tend to irritation because they lack the ability not to not take themselves seriously and laugh at themselves. They confuse robust argument with personal opprobrium. Some have a tendency to try and inflict American life, times, values and US military customs and practice on the rest of us. Our traditional response, refined over the years, and in countless encounters, has been to extract the urine or remove the snake’s hiss. And so it is in this thread.
Having said that, I fear we reach new heights of hypocrisy in attempting to compare a 14 (yes fourteen) month warrant (note the spelling please HAL Pilot ) officer straight out of US Army flight training, occupying a very junior position in a flying unit, with a seasoned veteran warrant officer of long service who has earned both his warrant (note the spelling again, please HAL Pilot ) and the respect of his comrades and colleagues.
In the Royal Australian (note the spelling please, HAL Pilot) Air Force, newly graduated pilots posted to flying units are known as “bog rats” or “boggies”– a derisory term that encapsulates their general worth in the flying environment. With the greatest of respect, there’s no evidence on this thread to suggest that an “instant” US Army WO1 of similar flying experience in a comparable flying environment is of any greater value on a squadron than his/her “boggie” equivalent. Yet learned US contributors persist in comparing the US equivalent of a “boggie” to a long serving US, UK or Australian veteran warrant officer. May I use the Crocodile Dundee vernacular and say: “Mate, if you believe that, I can surely interest you in some Sydney real estate that joins the North and South shore, that’s on the market for a song”!
Also, only the Americans can have “commissioned warrant officer”. Surely one either holds a warrant or a commission – but not both validly together. If it’s the latter, then one becomes a commissioned officer from the granting of the commission. If it’s the former, then one is truly a warrant officer and entitled to all the respect and privileges that go with that ancient rank and title.
Seems like too much Duff beer to me!