it mook metook me awhile to lea. there are two separate career paths in the u.s. army. this shows the officer career path for commissioned officers through officer candidate school or rotc or the service academy at west point for the army. you can start on the officer career path that starts at 2nd lieutenant, then 1st lieutenant, then captain, then major, then lieutenant colonel and a full bird colonel and then you re a general, one star and two star and so on. there is also a separate career pathing with different ranks for what they call enlisted personnel. this means you don t start at officer candidate school or rotc or west point. you enlist as a private. and then from there, the ranks rise through private first class and then specialist and then sergeant and staff sergeant, then sergeant first class, master sergeant, first sergeant, sergeant major and then command sergeant major. technically, there is one rank