Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)

[Wilson Gray]

Well, you might have mentioned that, in my day, zoomies lived two to a room,
without curfew, in motel-like luxury, whereas we GI's lived forty to a bay
(Army jargon for a large room) under curfew in military-standard barracks
squalor in "temporary" wooden housing left over from WWII or fifty to a bay
in old brick barracks built by Frederick the Great and confiscated from the
Wehrmacht. Since we had taken over all the old buildings, West Germany built
new, luxurious, townhouse-styled barracks for its Bundeswehr. Otherwise,
you've nailed it.

-Wilson

On 3/28/06, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Vals Kilmer (like "attorneys general"?)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> >         Historical reasons aside, there does seem to be a
> > pattern:  a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, a
> > lieutenant colonel outranks a major, and a lieutenant general
> > outranks a major general.
> >
> This isn't so much a pattern as it is a series of coincidences.
>
> A Sergeant Major is a very senior Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO, or
> "non-com"), while a lieutenant is a fairly junior commisioned officer.
> At some level, every officer outranks every NCO (although foolish indeed
> is the lieutenant who pulls rank on his sergeants -- they do the work of
> the Army, and have years of experience in not only leading but
> motivating the troops, while the LT is just learning the ropes).
>
> A Colonel outranks a Major, and a LtCol is just a junior Colonel, so
> it's not surprising that he'd still outrank a Major.  (A Colonel is a
> "full-bird" Colonel, because his rank insignia is an eagle -- LtCol
> insignia is a silver oak leaf, that doesn't look like any oak I've ever
> seen.  But it's still appropriate to address a LtCol as "Colonel Smith"
> in informal speech and writing.  Likewise, even though Brigadier
> Generals, Major Generals and Lt Generals have not yet reached the rank
> of "General", it is okay to refer to them as "General Doe".)
>
> And the whole BG < MG < LtG < Gen is just odd, especially since a
> Brigadier > a Major > a Lieutenant.
>
> And another thing.  When an officer in the Army is to be promoted, first
> he must make "the list" -- the list of those eligible to be promoted.
> He must have sufficient time in grade, made good enough evaluations,
> etc.  Then Congress passes a law which promotes them, and they attain
> the rank.  But during the interim (the time between when they make the
> list and when they actually get "frocked"), they are referred to as
> "Major Promotable" (if they are going to be a LtCol), and they often
> carry the responsibilities and duties of a LtCol, and may occupy a job
> which is typically filled by a LtCol.
>
> But when an Air Force (which is derived from the Army Air Corps, and has
> more or less the same rank structure and insignias) officer is in the
> same interim situation, he is referred to as "Lieutenant Colonel
> Designate".  In other words, he goes ahead and takes the rank, even
> though it isn't his yet.  This is one of several reasons that many
> green-suiters (Army) think that blue-suiters (Air Force) are full of
> themselves.
>
> I'm a civilian employee of the Army, and learned the above by osmosis.
> I'd love for someone who has been in the service (Wilson?) to double
> check me, and make sure I'm not full of it.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org