@jym626 Re sergeants taking a step back to go to OCS, the answer is occasionally yes, but mostly no.
Enlisted pay grades go from a low of E1 to a high of E9. In the Army, “sergeants” would be E5 & above (sergeant, staff sergeant, and so on). While people at E8 & E9 levels are probably in positions with enough clout & privilege that they generally wouldn’t want to go to the O1 (second lieutenant) level, it is not unheard of; and the lower you get from there ( E7 & below) it would would be increasingly unlikely that they would think a commission at O1 would be a step down.
While being an O1 isn’t much fun, in a few years you can be an O3, where the pay and authority are significantly above those of the vast majority of enlisted personnel.
Regardless, the sergeant in the article wants to become a warrant officer, not an O1. Warrant officers fulfill various roles in different fields in the different branches of the military, but they tend to be more subject-matter experts than leaders of large groups. If he aspires to be a warrant officer, it indicates he probably wants a future as more of a technical expert than a leader. That’s why it says it will be a dozen years until he becomes a warrant officer–it might take that long to acquire the necessary technical knowledge. If he wanted to be in more of a leadership role, his bachelor’s degree would make him eligible to apply to go to OCS right now.