How long does it take from being a private to being a captain or commander?

Question

Does it change when i choose to be reserved?
What is their salary?

Answer 1

They are two totaly different career tracks. Privates are enlisted and Captains are officers. If your going in as a private you will go from private to specialist and the go through all the sergeant ranks. Officers start as leutinants then captains then majors up to generals. If you are a private and want to be an officer they have a program called green-to-gold to turn you into an officer. Good Luck

Answer 2

I know your Australian, but in the states which I assume is much of the same. An enlisted rank will never became a Captain unless they become an officer through a college degree and officer commission. It is possible though, you could enlist which would make you a private to start out with then go to college while in the military, get a degree then request officer commission. If its granted you will be commissioned as a 2nd Lt. (in US military), after being promoted twice you would be a Captain. However if your wanting to be a commander, which is not a rank but a position. Then you need to get up to a least Major (one more rank) or more realistically be promoted to a Lt. Col. or Col. to be given your own command. All in all it would take 4-6 years to get your degree and commission, then 4 years or so to be promoted to Captain and another 15-20+ years to get your own command. All comes down to at least 23 years to be a commander starting from an enlisted rank however realistically way more than that unless you really distingish yourself. As for pay, the difference between a Private and a Captain is thousands of USDs even more if you became a commander.

Answer 3

You can not EVER go from Private (enlisted rank) to Captain (officer rank).



edit:

In both the US and Australian Army, the lowest officer rank you start out as is Second Lieutenant. Captain is the third Army officer rank in both. Commander is NOT an Army officer rank and is only found in the Navy of both countries. I don't know about the ADF, but in the US Army it generally takes at least 3 years to make Captain in the Army. It is probably a little longer in the ADF as your military is much smaller than ours, meaning fewer promotion opportunities.

Answer 4

You'll never go from being a private to a commander since those are two different services. You'll probably never go from being enlisted to being a commissioned officer unless there is a long war that kills lots of active officers and new ones can't be trained fast enough.



edit: I'm not sure about your army, but in the Canadian forces, Commander is a naval rank, equivalent to Lieutenant-Colonel in the army. Captain in the navy is equivalent to Colonel in the army, and Lieutenant in the navy is equivalent to an army Captain.



Navy: midshipman -> acting sub-lieutenant -> sub-lieutenant -> lieutenant -> lieutenant-commander -> commander -> captain -> commodore -> rear-admiral -> vice-admiral -> admiral



Army: officer cadet -> 2nd lieutenant -> lieutenant -> captain -> major -> lieutenant colonel -> colonel -> brigadier -> major general -> lieutenant general -> general



So in my program, I would have had to train as an officer cadet for four years while I earned my degree. At that point I would be commissioned as a second lieutenant. Then I would imagine it would take something like four or five years to progress through lieutenant to captain (the army version, or air force in my case), but I didn't stay long enough to find out.



hope that was useful.

Answer 5

It would depend on when you get your degree.

Most enlisted never become officers and most officers are never enlisted.

In the US to be an officer you need a 4 year college degree.

Then your chances of becoming a captain depend on a lot of other issues.

If you are in the Navy it could take close to 20 years other services it won't take as long as cpatain would be an o3

Answer 6

At least 15 years, plus a bachelors degree. More that anything being accepted into Officer candidate school...a long time.

Answer 7

Dream on kid most Privates stay Privates.

Answer 8

Years most wont even make it