On average, sure.

I enlisted at 17 my Jr year of hs  I was a e6 at 24 y/o when I went to a 2 year officer commissioning program 27 y/o 2 LT.
Retired a LTC age 45 with 27.5 years so I guess I was smarter after 8 years of college classes and had 8 years “education” in armor BN artillery BN and a evac hospital as a enlisted man and NCO platoon sgt.

Yeah, we were doing it like that circa 2003. Mostly because a bunch of us senior guys who were "strongly suggesting" to the Engineer School back in the dark ages of the early 1990s that they get off their asses and seriously look into the whole South African set of counter-mine equipment were roundly ignored.

F**king assholes up at the school actually told me, and I'm quoting more-or-less verbatim from a DA civilian who was a Reserve Major with 35th Engineer Brigade up there at the schoolhouse "...we don't want that capability (talking about both humanitarian de-mining and armored route clearance), because if we have it, someone will expect us to do it...".

Someone was talking about officer vs. enlisted intelligence in this thread...? Yeah. Perfect example of narrow-minded unobservant dolts in the commissioned side of the house. Anyone with a brain could look at world conflicts and say "Hey, ya know what? Mines and IEDs along lines of communications are gonna be a problem... Maybe we ought to look at being better prepared, eh?". They did not.

Oh, and if you ever wondered why the hell the FMTV has that idiotic cab-forward design that puts the crew compartment directly over the axle voted "Most Likely to Trigger a Detonation", well... They were told that was a bad idea. I know that for a fact, because I helped write a letter to the set of dolts who were running the FMTV program back when it was still in design and trials during the early 1990s. We told them why the South African SAMIL vehicles were built the way they were, for mine-strike resistance, and how it would be a Really Good Idea (tm) for us to emulate that with a conventional design that we also built an up-armor kit for from the beginning. Nope; the response to that was, and I quote, "These are not combat vehicles. We do not foresee the need for them to have those features...".

Anyone who wonders why I have a rather dubious attitude towards the geniuses we have working on the commissioned side of things, along with their educated-elite civilian counterparts can look at those two examples for the precise reason why I have that attitude. I have a multitude of other examples, as well.

We did not need to be "surprised" by any of the IED campaign in 2003. It was predictable, predicted, and could have been dealt with immediately, instead of having to use the primitive-ass techniques dating back to WWII that we initially had to put into use in Iraq. Which, did indeed include PFC Smith, a mine detector, and foot patrolling of the MSR. Sheer stupidity and narrow-mindedness made that necessary, and it was stupid back during Vietnam, where we did the same damn thing.

In short, unless you want a multi-volume tirade that I can back up with volumes of research, don't ask me about this issue. It still raises my blood pressure.

(Edited for content and some language error...)

second post nails it.

“Dunwoody graduated from State University of New York College at Cortland with a degree in physical education” Attached File
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I think there are two types we are discussing here

I have meet some pretty unintelligent officers
On the other hand I've found that enlisted personel at times can be just plain ignorant.

I probably fell into the ignorant category. Because now that I'm older and more educated and much wiser.

There's no way in hell I'd do the shit I was told to do when I was young and ignorant.

I've had flash backs and actually cringed at some of the things I've done.

But really for the most part. I think there's both good and bad enlisted and officers. Ive seen both.

But a bad officer can destroy you if your enlisted. Seen that happen.

But most of my officers and NCOs when I enlisted in 79 were Vietnam vet hard asses.

I had some great leadership when I enlisted and their shit was tight.

Nothing like the bullshit today you guys are putting up with. I couldn't do it. I'd be smashing someone's face in.

meh, six one, half dozen the other. Besides, its not an O vs. E thing. You've actually got 4 different types, Active Smart, Active Stupid, Lazy Smart and Lazy Stupid. Its the Lazy Smart letting the Active Smart do the actual work while keeping the Active Stupid from ruining everything. The Lazy Stupid just need to stay out from underneath every ones feet.

The lazy stupid make really great tamping on cratering charges... It's just that the paperwork on reporting the incidents gets kind of annoying, after a bit.

If I had to pick someone to do math that would save my life, I'd pick an officer.

If I had to pick someone to do some common sense tasks to save my life, I'd pick my platoon sergeant.

If I had to pick someone to actually do some WORK to save my life, I'd call in some privates.

Yeah, I can't imagine a professional wanting to be an avionics tech, unless it was to milk some kind of student loan repayment incentive.

However, I have met a recon PSG that was a deputy county attorney (and wouldn't promote past E-7 by choice), Civil Affairs NCOs that were in professional civilian jobs and combat arms enlisted with professional careers.  Stuff like that makes more sense than somebody like that in an actual work MOS.

And what percentage of that 41% of "advanced" degrees in the Air Guard are University of Phoenix (or similarly purchased) "degrees" designed to check a career box for government drones?

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They are more educated usually.

In my career, I had good officers, and great officers.  I had good NCOs, and great NCOs.

The best officers I had were former NCOs, though, by a wide margin.   As far as smart...  nearly everyone I served with was very smart, not necessarily book smart, but sharp.

I was combat arms my entire career, that may have had something to do with it, or not.

I don't know if this applies to the military, but in my personal life I've noticed a lot of people mistake experience for intelligence.  They often refer to this as "street smarts" but I wouldn't really consider it "intelligence" since they had to learn it the hard way.

For example, I was standing around a campfire with some friends.  Mr. StreetSmart added some sort of fuel additive because playing with fire is fun.  He then tossed the "empty" container into the fire, which tipped over with the opening pointed at someone else.  Mr. Intelligent immediately recognized the potential for a problem and told everyone to watch out.  Mr. StreetSmart downplayed the hazard up until a flare shot out of a container and caught someone's leg on fire.

At the end of the day they both know what happens when you throw an "empty" container of a flammable substance on a fire, but only one of them didn't actually have to set anyone on fire to figure it out.  That is why some people are charged with making decisions and other people are charged with following instructions.  Any idiot can learn from their mistakes.  Intelligent people are less likely to make them in the first place.

ETA I'm not discounting experience by any means.  Experience helps people make quicker decisions without having to analyze a bunch of information.  It's why professionals are better than amateurs and masters are better than apprentices.  It can also be more effective than intelligence as far as predicting a possible outcome.  The problem with experience is that, by definition, you have to experience something in order to attain it and that initial experience doesn't always have a favorable outcome.  It can also become a hindrance as situations change and prior experience doesn't necessarily apply.

On average? Yes. Obviously there’s exceptions, but I think those stick out more in our mind and make us forget the norm. I remember some genius enlisted and some moronic officers, but they weren’t the norm. Those of y’all saying enlisted are smarter are forgetting the sea of dipshit privates y’all were around, and which I was once a part of.

This pretty much nails it.

I’m saying everyone was dumb as rocks but in different ways and for different reasons. Also, degrees don’t mean squat in and of themselves unless everyone in this thread thinks Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Dianne Feinstein, etc. are brilliant Attached File
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The "higher education" thing for officers in the AF is in large part a farce.

CSB...I'm taking a grad school class at RAF Lakenheath. It's Human Factors in Aviation, I'm a SMSgt, and the only enlisted guy in a class of almost exclusively F-15 pilots and weapons officers. Instructor is a bird colonel of some flavor, flight surgeon I think. The class is in one of the squadron buildings (they all have their own bars), and the first night he tells everyone they can't drink in class, to a chorus of moans.

I work on my term paper for three weeks. Get it back, and he's written "A+, and if there was a higher grade you'd get it". At the end of class he asks all the officers to hang back. I'm mildly curious and a little offended, but screw it, I leave.

I get the full story a week later. The flyers have a file cabinet in one of the squadrons with dozens of old term papers. Everybody fishes a different paper out, changes it around, maybe updates it a little and hands it in. They don't give a fuck about the class, or the degree. The AF says they have to have a Masters to make major. Fill a square.

Odd thing, one of the pilots told me all the prof's knew about the file - what had really pissed him off was that nobody had bothered to "help" me. Guess it never occurred to them. He'd threatened to take a couple of them that hadn't even tried to hide their plagiarism to some kind of review. Never happened...but I knew it wouldn't.

I'd say on average, as far as raw intelligence, it skews slightly more in favor of officers, but frankly not so much that it matters. The dumb O is often in a position to make more mischief than the annoyingly stupid SNCO. In technical fields, SNCOs ARE the technical experts, along with CWOs if you have them.

Officers and SNCOs have different and complimentary career paths. While there is command responsibility, leadership in pursuit of the success of the mission is a collective responsibility regardless of rank or position, as is the welfare and development of juniors.

My SNCO's eyes on where the enlisted are at physically, spirituality, careerwise, job wise is INVALUABLE, and often takes a different type of intellectual flexibility that college or an academy doesn't immediately provide.

Further, I rely on the assessment of SNCOs for professional decisions...sometimes its fundamentally correct, sometimes its correct but loses to other factors, but the strength of the SNCO comes from strong assessments from which I can make decisions. I don't have to agree with it...but I do need to take it into account, and have the humility to point out where I was wrong, and take the time to explain other factors that mitigate what might appear from their perspective an easy call.

... as opposed to dorms with 17-19 year olds?

From what I've seen you've got smart people in both groups, but....
people who scored 40 on the asvab could enlist in the military in 1989.   That same person wouldn't be accepted as an officer.

Due the the lower IQ scores in the enlisted pool, I would say the average IQ was higher in the officer pool.

I was a nuke and I just nuked it out.   Of course, one of the key rules for any nuke is the 50/50/90 rule.   If it's a 50 50 choice, 90% of the time a nuke will over-analyze it and choose the wrong answer.

A PFC pulled the fire alarm at jump school then stood there. When the instructors came thru and found out they asked why he did it. I was there and heard him say “I was curious what would happen” There’s some rock stupid enlisted for sure and some are dangerously stupid resulting in deaths or property damage. But you also have smart but corrupt officers https://www.cid.army.mil/headlines.html

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they used to teach that at the academy but i met some officers dumber than a box of rocks.
hate insulting the poor box of rocks.

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Kind of a silly question if asked seriously.

I served with some sharp officers and some real basket cases. Ditto with EM, including senior NCO. When the draft was going on you had all kinds.

I was enlisted Navy, Naval Aviation.  Fighters.  There was no comparison.

I'm not saying that our enlisted techs were stupid--they weren't.  I'm saying that, on general, our pilots were Tier One intelligence.

They were Tier One men, on the whole...not just intelligence.  Better genes.  Better manners.  90% of the time, better physical condition.
You could put ten men in a building in the exact same clothes, and still be able to pick out the officers...at least in my experience.

OP the world is never that black and white.

I personally know EM’s with masters degrees.

I also know O’s who struggle to write a coherent paragraph.

Generally speaking, O’s have more formal education, it’s usually a requirement.

I have heard this trope over and over.  I was 20 years enlisted, on my 14th year as a contrator doing the same thing.  I have not seen this "arrogance" in the Naval fighter community.  I have seen confidence, but not arrogance.

I've seen it, but it's not all that common. It's just much more visible. Actually, IME it's some of the senior enlisted that think they know it all when often they don't (more often on the 1stSgt/SgtMaj side) I've been told incorrect information from Sgt'sMaj concerning FITREPS that was absolutely and 100% false... it's an interesting day as a 2ndLt to correct the SgtMaj, but he was an arrogant ass and was wrong to boot.
I have of course worked with MANY absolutely phenomenal Staff NCOs too (the vast majority).

IME with officers, most genuinely seek out the advice of their SNCOs and quite a lot "know what they don't know" and go find answers. There's too much on the line for us to assume we know it all, fuck it up, then also be the ones on the hook when we do something retarded. Most want to get the best info available, and that includes getting the SSgt, Gy, MSgt or MGuns involved, and often even some sharp NCOs.

Our PMS didn't like it when, during a discussion of how commissions used to be sold to officers, a buddy of mine opined that we still do, they're just called academy appointments (PMS was only still in the Army due to the WPPA, and even they couldn't save him from himself, the buddy in question is now a LTC himself and a battalion commander).

Rank is not synonymous with intelligence.  We have all seen fuck up, move up far too many times.

My base commander cut off three of his fingers trying to clean out a running lawnmower.

Many officers have an engineering degree. Having four years thinking analytically can really add some additional depth to an individual's mental processing power. In addition, the physics background lets a body have a better understanding of their surroundings. A college background prepares people better for accurate record keeping, which is paramount in many military fields.

I did it backwards; enlisted before going to University and doing math for four years. I owed it to myself to go do some higher learning. I crushed my year of technical training in avionics. No sailor or marine, in my A school class, was even close to keeping up with my GPA. Sort of on topic, way more sailors washed out of the job than did the Marines. I spent many more hours having study groups with the crayon eaters than with my Navy counterparts. Team green was way more motivated. Motivation is the key to being smart in a military manner.

I’m an E7 in Air Command and Staff College and there’s no bullshit going on in it.  You have to submit all the papers in through an anti-plagiarism site when you submit them.

He was commissioned, he was going through Ranger School after IOBC when his various issues came to light, particularly in how he interacted with the Ranger Instructors.  He was on the books for 10th Mountain, but was already in hot water when he reported in to them, and was benched someplace (usually in the S-3 shop) until the decision was made to request that he resign his commission (which puts him on the hook for paying back his West Point education).

A buddy is a battalion commander for a chemical battalion, he is DESPERATE to find young officers with a strong chemistry background, as the Officer Basic Course just isn't enough.  He's actually talking to one of my friends who is prior service and has a chemistry degree about the possibility of going OCS.

USMC is the same, and an immediate F and dropped from the school. Likely to get negative paperwork too. I was instructed to even cite quotes from earlier papers that I wrote myself in order to not get flagged for plagiarism.

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I was enlisted in the Navy. There are some real dumbfuck enlisted guys in the Navy.

I hadn’t thought of doing that.  That way I can claim I’ve been cited in papers.  

They're supposed to be.

Apparently you haven't dealt with the E4 mafia.

Average 20 year old...no.

 But you're looking at a small slice of the pie.  Look at the average  AVERAGE E-4 to E-7 in Ships Service fields, cooks, laundry, postal clerks, rock pile.  Take almost any tech rate and the intelligence level shoots up.

I was First LT on a cruier.  Had 63 non-rates.  Several I would (and did) stake my life on as boast crews, etc.  Some, would get lost trying to find the ship if we moved one pier over..

Look at the troops that fail to qualify for any training schools on enlistment..

Almost all officers have to have received a Bachelors Degree, so they had to have been accepted at some 4 year institution and if on an ROTC Scholarship, had to be at least somewhat competitive on SAT scores etc.

So , per the op, taking the communities as a whole, everybody.  Yeah to O's are smarter

Those who know what Bell Curves are will likely agree.  Those who don't know what a Bell Curve is, well that speaks for itself.

The 82nd has a reputation for being like that for officers, it's the major reason my brother elected to go to the 101st for his first assignment :-)  After time as an RI and with the 4/25th Airborne in Alaska, he's within a few jumps of his master blaster wings, and should be coming up for review for lieutenant colonel soon, he may be considered for below the zone this year, looking at the charts.

Talking with John Ringo, even in the early '80's, the 82nd was full of careerists looking to get their stars, many of whom left the Pentagon only long enough to hold battalion command so their file would show battalion command in the division.

And  you got an update when you went from O-1 to O-2, right?

No, he didn't make it through an entire enlistment, he got picked up for the academy after roughly two years, after he'd been booted from the Ranger Regiment, apparently his next command didn't know why he was released by Regiment.

It feels weird quoting yourself in papers, but I'll be damned if I'm going to duplicate effort

That's not her only degree.

And having a great-grandfather and father who both graduated from West Point and made brigadier general certainly didn't hurt her career progression, especially since her father was a veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  Her brother is also a West Point grad, but got out as a 1LT.