Thursday, June 12, 2014

A Minor Point About Majors

major oak leaves

I woke up this morning wondering why there seemed to be so few officers with the rank of major in the US Army.  When I was at Ft. Hood in the 60s, there were light colonels everywhere, almost as common as second lieutenants, but the only major I ever met was a dentist.

Logically, there ought to be more majors than lieutenant colonels – in the climb up the ranks O-4 is a necessary step prior to achieving O-5 – but majors were hard to find.  In recent years, one Ft. Hood major – Nadal Hassan – made the news, but he would have to be considered an anomaly, to say the least.

It wasn’t just my imagination.  A check of Department of Defense records for 2011 – the most recent date available on line – shows that over twice as many officers retire as a lieutenant colonel, and during their mid-40s, the ages when most choose to retire, almost five times as many leave as lieutenant colonels as retire as majors.

I can’t explain it.  It is a mystery to me.  I’m not even sure why I should care.

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