this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Youre mistaken. A "rate" is where you are on the E1 - E9 paygrade scale. A "rating" is your assigned job, what you get after A school. A Fireman has a rate of E-1/3. He does not have a rating because he hasn't been to A school. You can also "strike" for a rating by testing into it, but thats rarer.
There is more history about this confusing system here Note that this is from a .mil site specifically about Navy history. The article is from 2019.
I don't want to keep replying to this but in response to your 'this is from a .mil site specifically ...' I linked to the DOD's actual gov website.
This article is relevant for NAVPERS 18068F because the Navy has all of this annoying traditions, like referring to '-' as Tack like they are pretending to be a flagman from 1835 on a ship and refer to a snackbar as a gedunk and blah blah blah.
But they still have a military rank. Sure, if you ask someone enlisted person what their 'rate' is they are going to respond with "PO1" if they are a Petty Officer First Class but if you have a CAC ID, under RANK it is going to say PO1 with the USN's seal in the top-right. Because it is their military rank. The USN can call it a rate as well and traditionally it can be known as a rate in the USN but it is still a military rank. It will even say that on your ID card if you have one or have had one. As I recall, this is also true for the old green ID cards.
It's not a tradition, it's the correct nomenclature. The article I posted isn't talking about history, it's talking about how rate/rank works in the Navy.
Your link has to do with ratings, I.e. jobs. That is a distinct thing from rate, i.e paygrade. It refers to enlisted by ratings and paygrade, never rank.
As to military ID, they use a generic format that has "rank" and "grade" listed. This format is used for all US armed forces, enlisted and officers, and as such is a generic catch all since all other branches of the military use rank for enlisted. For uniformity sake, the card omits the Navy's odd quirk.