Ranks of Yesteryear

There Have Been Many Changes to the Ranks at Benedictine Over the Years

By Orlando Orellana-Duran ‘24

With all the great memories the Cadets have made come with some dark days.

Benedictine is a military, well-disciplined school with a strong curriculum, so nothing comes easy. While at Benedictine, Cadets are guaranteed to have hardships. “My worst memory was orientation camp,” Jagen Ratlief ‘23 expressed.

“It was freezing cold, and we were outside pushing, running, yell- ing and doing a lot of things I didn’t want to do at all.”

Coming into Benedictine there is a series of hazing, and to end it Cadets have to go to Camp T. Brady Saunders for three days. It’s surely a mentally tough camp to get through, but in the end it is worth it. Every Cadet has a different experience.

Finally, the Cadets will always cherish these memories on the way out the door.

Throughout its over 100-year history, Benedictine has had a multitude of positions for its Cadets to earn. With such a long history, new ranks have been introduced and discarded over the years due to new developments at the school.

“Some ranks, like athletics officers, weren’t that old,” stated Colonel Walker. “And their jobs could easily be incorporated into other positions.”

Currently, 16 officers compose Staff: 12 sponsoring officers, and 4 regular officers: battalion commander, battalion executive officer, command sergeant major, inspector general, S-1 adjutant, S-2 security officer, S-3 operations officer, S-4 supply officer, S-5 public affairs officer, battalion chaplain, judge advocate general, provost commander, security assistant, operations assistant, supply assistant and provost assistant. But, there used to be many more: S-5 personnel officer, fiscal officer, ordnance officer, cadet management officer, band major, colors officer, athletics officer, S-6 communications officer, NHS officer, chaplain assistant, athletics assistant, NHS assistant judge advocate general assistant and cadet management assistant. There are quite a few differences between these ranks. For example, all senior assistants today are regular officers, being first lieutenants, but back then, the assistants were sponsoring officers, being captains.

While for some ranks, it is hard to pinpoint what they did for others, it is easy to figure out their purposes. The colors captain, for example, simply had to organize color guard events, much like its current counterpart the colors NCO.

For other positions, however, it can be a bit confusing as to what they did. But thanks to academies in JROTC or ROTC programs, their purposes can be identified. For example, the Cadet management officer and its assistant are similar to VMI’s S-7 Cadet life officer, which oversees the well-being and morale of the Corps. Other forgotten ranks include the fiscal and ordnance officers. The fiscal officer most likely acted as a treasurer for the school, while the ordnance officer would, most likely, make sure all equipment was working as it should. The athletics officer had quite a simple job, as all he had to do was make sure the Cadets cleaned up their bleachers after games. Another group of officers Benedictine saw fit to get rid of are the company officers for Delta Company, Echo Company and Foxtrot Company. These three companies were a relic of a time when the Corps was much larger. Like the surviving phonetically-named companies, these had a company commander, an executive officer and platoon leaders.

While many positions have come and gone, some current ranks have had many overhauls. While to the current Corps, the battalion commander has always been a lieutenant colonel and the battalion executive officer a major, back in the old days, it was not so, as the BC had the rank of colonel and the XO was a lieutenant colonel. “I disagree with it [the change from colonel to lieutenant colonel for battalion commander], but I understand why

See Page 5: Changes in Ranks