Two paths into Army rotary wing.
Traditional commissioned officer sourcing through West Point -ROTC - OCS assessing (probably the least reliable method of the 3). You come in as a 2Lt.
Warrant officer programs for enlisted or off the street application. The off the street version is called WOFT (warrant officer flight training). Big thing with that is while a degree isn’t required it only helps your application. Flight training is probably the most overly expensive way of trying to impress the board vs having good general character and references and showing potential through education sports etc. With WOFT you go through a regular Army recruiter for active duty, or a specific reserve/guard units recruiter for them. You are NOT required to enlist and serve some time before applying, so any recruiter telling you that is selling something false to make their numbers. It is just a longer process than recruiting to the normal army MOSs so some don’t want to invest the time.
Right now we are increasing the warrant pool at the highest rate since the surge period during Iraq/Afghanistan. Problem is now there is a 10 year service requirement upon completing training. So for somebody off the street you’re looking at just shy of 12 years minimum hitch in the Army.
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It was the same way 30 years ago when I rolled the dice on this in the information scarce, pre-internet days.
For me, I tried the OCS assessing. Had friends try to convince me that the warrant officer program was the way to go, but being 21, I knew everything about everything and if I was going to go, it was going to be as an officer.
FWIW, the Navy and Air Force at the time were RIFing people left and right. About half my buds that had gone through school on ROTC were simply released...after they got a paid ride through school. The Army were the only ones talking to people, let alone the ones off the street.
As Lawman said, recruiters....yea, I'd rather buy a car from "some guy" in a sketch part of town. Anyway, I jumped through all the hoops, ASVAB, OSB, FAST, and did that 2 day physical which was a thing back then. I was getting pretty close to signing on the line that was dotted, and...
Someone was watching out for me, as my buddy at the time was in the Naval Reserve, and there was a Army Reserve Aviation detachment at our airport. He knew some of them, and hooked me up with some of their dudes, who did some following up, and it turns out everyone who was going the aviation track at the time was getting parked for a minimum of 2 years, and sent to Calvary to be tank drivers.
I tried to follow up on this with the recruiter, who ghosted me, so at that point, I saw it as a sign.
The moral of the story is if you are going that way, it really, really pays to have some kind of mentor who can help you watchdog the process. I'm not saying tear-assing around some German farmer's field in an M1 wouldn't be fun, but it really isn't my thing.
