Originally Posted by
rickair7777
There's a little more to it than that.
How many sixteen years have authority to launch missiles on unsuspecting targets...who had better not turn out to be innocent bystanders.
In many cases we use officers to do jobs where the skill itself is not that hard but the ramifications of screwing up are large...junior officers generally have better judgement and perspective, and more to lose, than junior enlisted.
While thats true, the actual technical job of flying a drone can be done by enlisted personel, and the the decision to shoot can come from an officer overseing several missions at once.
While I don't know for sure about how things are now, When I was in the military no one under the rank of Lt. Col. could approve fireing on hostiles unless they where firing on us.