> [...] the four executives will all attend the Army’s six-week Direct Commissioning Course at Fort Benning, Georgia [...]
Sometimes known as "fork and knife school". I can't speak specifically for the Army, but a particular personal incident comes to mind.
When I attended AFROTC field training at Maxwell AFB, in a lot of ways it was a fairly typical boot camp experience, with roaming enlisted training instructors ready to very promptly and firmly correct any deviations from standard in a memorably expedient fashion (much less swearing than Full Metal Jacket, as it's the Air Force). One day during this fine summer camp I found myself on the receiving end of one such chewing out from a TI, for walking around the wrong side of a table in the dining facility.
It was in the midst of this comically scathing tirade (something about him threatening to crawl up my nose and living in my nightmares if I dared try it again) that this Technical Sergeant abruptly stopped, wheeled around and was about to tear into another hapless cadet that took the same detour I did. But instead, without a whit of the seething rage he was pouring out just a second before, he calmly patiently explained to this trainee that she was to take a different route, punctuating the instructions with a "right over there, ma'am". It was at that moment that I noticed that she did not have cadet insignia on her lapels, but captain's bars. It turns out she was a proper M.D., fresh from med school, directly commissioned and immediately outranking the sergeant that was giving me the what-for and her polite guidance.
So by Direct Commissioning, it is indeed direct.
duxup · 6h ago
I remember my grandfather’s descriptions of WWII in the pacific. One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.
The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he was a doctor.
Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
snerbles · 6h ago
> One was a Marine who made a number of landings and was involved in a lot that “I wish I could forget”.
My grandfather landed at Tarawa. He only talked about privately, it to family members that were in the service.
> The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
From my experience, military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service (unlike most military jobs, where it's assumed that you know little to nothing of the job), the direct commissioning training is mostly so they can function and fit in that environment.
Kon-Peki · 6h ago
> military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service
Sure, most of them join either during med school or during residency, with Uncle Sam picking up the financial obligations.
Funny story - good friend was an army doc and we managed to both get time off at the same time/location. Hanging out along the ocean and come across a little kid that got hurt. So he goes into doctor mode and talks soothingly to the kid, who is very apprehensive. He says “I know you’re not so sure I’m a doctor. It’s because I haven’t asked your parents for their insurance info yet” and smiles at the mom and dad.
Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.
jakebasile · 1m ago
> Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.
Despite not being anything close to an MD, a social media app I use has determined that I am. I get recruiting ads from the Navy that says this, in effect: "Don't worry about malpractice or insurance, just your patient". It's a pretty good sales pitch, I imagine.
duxup · 6h ago
Yeah the Marine talked openly about it maybe a handful of times with me, I got the feeling he left a lot out, even then they were never happy stories. I got the feeling he carried his experiences like a weight his entire life and he didn't ever describe it in any good terms, none of it. Didn't help that he lost his brother (also a Marine).
Aeolun · 5h ago
I think it’d be fairly odd to describe any experience in which you have actual combat experience in a positive light.
At least, my experiences talking with a combat medic and the weather corps couldn’t be more different.
jt2190 · 6h ago
My wife and I were at a formal event dinner banquet related to her med school. We were in a small group chatting: On one side an Air Force ROTC med student in his dress uniform and his wife. On the other side another med student and her Navy NCO husband in his dress uniform. I remember distinctly that the Navy NCO kept politely saying “sir” when he addressed the Air Force ROTC.
The Air Force officer mentioned that he got a “light” version of basic training. The Navy NCO said nothing. His ROTC’s wife added that it must have been petty light, because she remembered a call from him where he mentioned that they ran out of ice cream.
breppp · 4m ago
Reminds of the story of Major Major from Catch 22 who was promoted due to a computer bug to the rank of Major and outranked everyone in flight school
yardie · 5h ago
I'm reminded of an ex who was inquiring about paying for dental school on a ROTC scholarship. She tells the recruiter that she was worried about all the yelling she'd have to deal with at bootcamp since she has severe anxiety. And the recruiter told her the medical officers don't do any of that, she had nothing to worry about.
franktankbank · 6h ago
LOL.
pimlottc · 7h ago
Don’t forget there was already a team of industry-sourced (non-commissioned) tech experts in the Pentagon, the Defense Digital Service, that operated for almost a decade before being sidelined by DOGE:
Direct commissioning is for bringing people in as lieutenants (O1). Think a 22 year old college graduate.
Lieutenant colonels are the equivalent of corporate senior directors (O5). This means they could be either a battalion commander, approximate footprint of 300-500 people, or a senior staff officer for a command/division. By that point they are expected to have at least 15 years military experience.
The challenge at that level of management is writing and evaluating plans for their organization that must be able to move across the battlefield and roll up all corresponding metrics. Think of that as moving your entire office staff to a new location 50 miles away as frequently as needed. A 6 week bootcamp won’t get you that. As someone with 28 years military experience and a corporate nerd with almost 20 years experience I promise that corporate management is not the same. That part time job can suddenly feel like a full time responsibility.
The exception to this are licensed doctors and lawyers. They enter the military as captains instead of lieutenants.
chipsa · 4h ago
The point of commissioning them isn’t for them to take command of a line infantry battalion. It’s to have them have authority to do stuff that requires a Lt col, but is not actually commanding. It’s like how we commissioned a whole bunch of people in WWII to do admin jobs.
austin-cheney · 1h ago
I get that. I am a signal officer. Those guys will be signal officers. I have a pretty solid idea of what their level of actual responsibility is. The point is they need some expertise to exercise that level of responsibility. Otherwise they are tiny advisors masquerading as people with real legal authority.
bgwalter · 6h ago
They are part time and this is just another revolving door between the military and industry. They are literally there to sell their products (and brag about "having served").
"The Army in March 2021 awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract worth up to $21.9 billion for IVAS, but the initial version of the system experienced technical difficulties with a number of soldiers experiencing dizziness, headaches or nausea after wearing the goggles."
fancyMorsel · 6h ago
Yup, I’d expect a data scientist or equivalent programmer commissioning as a captain, not a c-suite executive that is more of an MBA graduate. It all seems fishy.
gexla · 6h ago
I have never been an officer, but the C-suite in the military is like "flag rank" which is above Colonel (Brigadier General.) Colonels are more like high management. But they likely won't be promoted, won't have an actual command, and rank means little more than the title.
djeastm · 6h ago
As former enlisted myself, I don't understand why they need to be in the military to serve as advisors. No one's going to treat them like real LTCs anyway (outwardly they will, of course, but not with the same respect).
snerbles · 6h ago
That also strikes me as odd. When I was deployed, we had plenty of contractors/DOD civilians to handle various technical things, and to help maintain continuity while the rest of us rotated in and out of the theater. They didn't need to be commissioned.
If these execs were experienced engineers that needed to be embedded in a unit in the field, maybe, and definitely not at O-5. Usually these sorts of urgently-needed experts become instructors and teach troops the specific technical skills without the need for being enlisted/commissioned/warrant themselves.
Someone more familiar with the political games inside the Pentagon will better understand this decision.
ericrosedev · 6h ago
Contractors down range used to have something like a company logo or something as their rank, you could always tell because it would be some guy with a gut and long hair in fatigues with a weird rank. Give them that and let them feel like soldiers, not an oak leaf
EPWN3D · 5h ago
It's an ego trip. That's all.
VectorLock · 5h ago
Get those sweet "Veteran" plates.
Bender · 4h ago
Get those sweet "Veteran" plates.
In my state that only requires a DD-214 with honorable discharge and $50.
Jtsummers · 6h ago
> The Detachment 201 program is aimed at bringing in part-time advisors from the private sector to help the service adopt and scale commercial technology like drones and robots into its formations.
So we're taking executives from companies that sell to the government and military to advise the military on what to adopt. And not only are we bringing them into the fold, we're commissioning so we can give them a pension in 20 years after they've recommended their own employers' services and products.
chipsa · 4h ago
You think they’ll still be in for 20 years? And you need 20 “good years” to get a pension for non-active duty service.
mrbluecoat · 6h ago
The reality is that other countries are preparing for Ender's Game style warfare with drones, robotics, and digital sabotage so the U.S. needs to keep pace. This announcement doesn't surprise me at all.
ausbah · 6h ago
not sure why ender’s game needs a reference when #1 & #3 have been around for 10-15+ years. i sort of remain doubtful that robotics will play as large of a role with how large much less of a role that infantry has played in modern warfare (think of exoskeletons, robotic carriers, terminator style killing machines)
mindslight · 6h ago
Keeping pace by helping with other countries' sabotage efforts? If these actions actually ended up benefiting the country rather than being yet another nepotism based snipe hunt for woke, that would be a pleasant surprise.
timewizard · 5h ago
> so the U.S. needs to keep pace.
Yea! We can't fall behind as the worlds leading weapons manufacturer. It's important that we tap even Silicon Valley to continue producing weapons of war and death.
> This announcement doesn't surprise me at all.
Our burgeoning legacy hasn't surprised me since the 90s.
absurdo · 6h ago
Same. I encourage this, in fact.
oooyay · 6h ago
The choice to pick up executives rather than engineers is a bit confusing if the goal is to modernize.
jfengel · 6h ago
Executives are obviously more skilled. Just check out their paychecks. Each of them is worth at least a dozen engineers.
gibbitz · 5h ago
By paycheck my company's CEO is worth 95 senior engineers and that's before stock options. With stock options he's worth 265 senior engineers! (Or 240 and 670 junior developers respectively)
He's so skilled he splits atoms with his mind. He probably should be president, except he's nowhere near the highest paid executive in the US. Probably not in the top 500.
No comments yet
whall6 · 6h ago
I think it would have been cool to see them allow a hand chosen direct report join them. And maybe that direct report’s hand chosen direct report too.
bilbo0s · 6h ago
In fairness, the military is full of engineers.
cempaka · 6h ago
It's about pushing an agenda and selecting the people with the correct (lack of) morality to do it.
sgnelson · 7h ago
This is such a bad idea, I can't even...
snerbles · 7h ago
O-5 isn't that much power - as a battalion commander, that's leading about 300-1,000 soldiers. They wouldn't necessarily be leading troops, but instead be in advisory roles where the rank might have them be taken a little more seriously by flag officers than if they were commissioned as a company grade officer.
the__alchemist · 6h ago
Direction commission officers aren't line-officers (AFAIK), so they are don't command in the way you're describing. That assumes doctor/lawyer/nurse though...
susiecambria · 7h ago
I don't know any tech execs and I am only remotely familiar with the military, but I am hazarding a guess that the cultures in tech and the military are not at all similar. I'm also guessing that there is a massive difference between fighting for Ukraine by using your tech skills and participating in a time-limited, no-real-skin-in-the-game learning exercise.
Not to mention that at the same time this is happening, SecDef fired a number of generals, and the military is being used for political purposes, at least according to some.
bilbo0s · 6h ago
Everything you said is true. But regarding your last point, I mean, the military has always been used for political purposes.
thaumasiotes · 7h ago
Why?
cempaka · 7h ago
Bad for whom?
hunglee2 · 3m ago
Military-Civilian fusion, with US characteristics
neilv · 7h ago
Is there modern precedent for this?
I thought the modern US military was very big on process and tradition in the development of officers.
spankibalt · 6h ago
The Royal Aircraft Factory (Farnborough) during the notorious "White Feather" campaign hysteria of World War I; its workers were given a military rank, its superintendent, Mervyn O'Gorman, got field-promoted to lieutenant-colonel.
The somewhat famous quote "Alight here for the Home of Rest with Army Exemption thrown in", a familiar greeting to RAF's working force by Farnborough's tram conductors, is a testament to it.
WW2, William Knudsen, president of General Motors, was directly commissioned in as a 3 star general. He was in charge of War Production. Sometimes, deep industry expertise can’t wait for OCS. Granted, this was wartime.
iamleppert · 6h ago
Yeah because someone who spent their days building dashboards or working on the metaverse will have the first clue on how to deploy drones in the military. What a joke!
okdood64 · 5h ago
Their not asking them to be mission specialists. They're asking to guidance on how to build out and maintain a tech platform for the product (drone) folks to build on.
VectorLock · 5h ago
Does this count as "Bought Valor?"
Kevin Weil, that tracks...
ImJamal · 4h ago
Are they buying their position?
No comments yet
AndrewKemendo · 4h ago
Former Major, Iraq War Veteran and Air Force academy graduate here.
I can’t think of many worse ideas.
But here we are
epicureanideal · 7h ago
Anything to get more clueless corporate management losers out of industry.
bilbo0s · 6h ago
Understand the sentiment..
but I mean..
why put them in the military?
That seems like, I don't know, maybe something that can go south in a lot of different ways.
ahartmetz · 5h ago
Such ranks tend to be mostly for pay grade and they count for some formal but mostly meaningless stuff like who salutes whom first and who gets to tell off whom (in practice for such officers, it's more a shield than a weapon - everyone knows which kind of officers they are) in general situations. These officers aren't going to be leading direct fighting or anything like that.
Source: Was a draftee once, talked to a technical officer later.
> The Army calls the program to recruit Silicon Valley executives Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps. One of the executives, Andrew Bosworth of Meta (formerly Facebook) posted on X that the “201” monicker was a nod to an HTML coding command, in which a “201” response indicates the creation of a new programming resource.
Somehow I imagine that Andrew Bosworth didn't phrase things quite that way.
U.S. Army bringing in big tech executives as lieutenant colonels - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44273067 - June 2025
Related thread (not merged but downweighted:
I'm the CTO of Palantir. Today I Join the Army - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44270660 - June 2025 (55 comments)
Sometimes known as "fork and knife school". I can't speak specifically for the Army, but a particular personal incident comes to mind.
When I attended AFROTC field training at Maxwell AFB, in a lot of ways it was a fairly typical boot camp experience, with roaming enlisted training instructors ready to very promptly and firmly correct any deviations from standard in a memorably expedient fashion (much less swearing than Full Metal Jacket, as it's the Air Force). One day during this fine summer camp I found myself on the receiving end of one such chewing out from a TI, for walking around the wrong side of a table in the dining facility.
It was in the midst of this comically scathing tirade (something about him threatening to crawl up my nose and living in my nightmares if I dared try it again) that this Technical Sergeant abruptly stopped, wheeled around and was about to tear into another hapless cadet that took the same detour I did. But instead, without a whit of the seething rage he was pouring out just a second before, he calmly patiently explained to this trainee that she was to take a different route, punctuating the instructions with a "right over there, ma'am". It was at that moment that I noticed that she did not have cadet insignia on her lapels, but captain's bars. It turns out she was a proper M.D., fresh from med school, directly commissioned and immediately outranking the sergeant that was giving me the what-for and her polite guidance.
So by Direct Commissioning, it is indeed direct.
The other was a Navy doctor. An officer, but really because he was a doctor.
Their experiences were wildly different. Not so much about risk but the Marine was a grunt and his description oozed what it meant to be at that level of rank. The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
My grandfather landed at Tarawa. He only talked about privately, it to family members that were in the service.
> The doctor ... his description was that doctors, while they had rank, were largely left alone to their own devices to do what they needed to do. Rank wasn't really relevant to their daily lives.
From my experience, military doctors tend to be doctors that happen to wear a uniform. They already have the skills actually needed by the service (unlike most military jobs, where it's assumed that you know little to nothing of the job), the direct commissioning training is mostly so they can function and fit in that environment.
Sure, most of them join either during med school or during residency, with Uncle Sam picking up the financial obligations.
Funny story - good friend was an army doc and we managed to both get time off at the same time/location. Hanging out along the ocean and come across a little kid that got hurt. So he goes into doctor mode and talks soothingly to the kid, who is very apprehensive. He says “I know you’re not so sure I’m a doctor. It’s because I haven’t asked your parents for their insurance info yet” and smiles at the mom and dad.
Later on he says that never dealing with insurance is one of the perks of being a doctor in the military.
Despite not being anything close to an MD, a social media app I use has determined that I am. I get recruiting ads from the Navy that says this, in effect: "Don't worry about malpractice or insurance, just your patient". It's a pretty good sales pitch, I imagine.
At least, my experiences talking with a combat medic and the weather corps couldn’t be more different.
The Air Force officer mentioned that he got a “light” version of basic training. The Navy NCO said nothing. His ROTC’s wife added that it must have been petty light, because she remembered a call from him where he mentioned that they ran out of ice cream.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/pentagons-digital-r...
Lieutenant colonels are the equivalent of corporate senior directors (O5). This means they could be either a battalion commander, approximate footprint of 300-500 people, or a senior staff officer for a command/division. By that point they are expected to have at least 15 years military experience.
The challenge at that level of management is writing and evaluating plans for their organization that must be able to move across the battlefield and roll up all corresponding metrics. Think of that as moving your entire office staff to a new location 50 miles away as frequently as needed. A 6 week bootcamp won’t get you that. As someone with 28 years military experience and a corporate nerd with almost 20 years experience I promise that corporate management is not the same. That part time job can suddenly feel like a full time responsibility.
The exception to this are licensed doctors and lawyers. They enter the military as captains instead of lieutenants.
What are other nepotistic initiatives?
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/10/...
"The Army in March 2021 awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract worth up to $21.9 billion for IVAS, but the initial version of the system experienced technical difficulties with a number of soldiers experiencing dizziness, headaches or nausea after wearing the goggles."
If these execs were experienced engineers that needed to be embedded in a unit in the field, maybe, and definitely not at O-5. Usually these sorts of urgently-needed experts become instructors and teach troops the specific technical skills without the need for being enlisted/commissioned/warrant themselves.
Someone more familiar with the political games inside the Pentagon will better understand this decision.
In my state that only requires a DD-214 with honorable discharge and $50.
So we're taking executives from companies that sell to the government and military to advise the military on what to adopt. And not only are we bringing them into the fold, we're commissioning so we can give them a pension in 20 years after they've recommended their own employers' services and products.
Yea! We can't fall behind as the worlds leading weapons manufacturer. It's important that we tap even Silicon Valley to continue producing weapons of war and death.
> This announcement doesn't surprise me at all.
Our burgeoning legacy hasn't surprised me since the 90s.
He's so skilled he splits atoms with his mind. He probably should be president, except he's nowhere near the highest paid executive in the US. Probably not in the top 500.
No comments yet
Not to mention that at the same time this is happening, SecDef fired a number of generals, and the military is being used for political purposes, at least according to some.
I thought the modern US military was very big on process and tradition in the development of officers.
The somewhat famous quote "Alight here for the Home of Rest with Army Exemption thrown in", a familiar greeting to RAF's working force by Farnborough's tram conductors, is a testament to it.
And for individuals with the right skills and experience, O-5 isn't unusual.
EDIT: Here's a random example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Military_Medicine/comments/1468l1f/...
Kevin Weil, that tracks...
No comments yet
I can’t think of many worse ideas.
But here we are
but I mean..
why put them in the military?
That seems like, I don't know, maybe something that can go south in a lot of different ways.
Source: Was a draftee once, talked to a technical officer later.
https://archive.is/pGSZO
Somehow I imagine that Andrew Bosworth didn't phrase things quite that way.