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A brigadier general world command about 4000 troops in a field deployment (i.e. when they go to shoot some brown people) so that’s a pretty high ranking guy.
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Submitted 1 week ago by pinebees@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 week ago
A_Wild_Zeus_Chase@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Not military but my understanding is:
Commissioned officer: starts at second lieutenant, can go all the way to lieutenant general, have to go to specialized school (like West Point) to be eligible. Receive their “commission”/assignment directly from president. As the other commenter mentioned, BG is fairly high up.
Each service can have slightly different names for certain positions. And yes they split CO positions into three types, company, field and general, BG is the lowest “general officer”. As to how, you could always ask, but some combination of seniority/achievements. He almost certainly serviced in combat in Afghanistan/iraq as a field officer given the timelines.
Non-commissioned officer: these people joined as rank and file, and got promoted to oversee/command people below them, but didn’t go to specialized school, and can’t rise above sergeant major. So you could have a guy with 20 years of experience commanded by a brand new second lieutenant.
Rank and file: privates and the like.
AnAustralianPhotographer@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It varies by army, so this won’t be exact.
A platoon has around 30 people in it. It has around 20 privates, about 7 non commissioned officers and one commissioned officer. Say 3 lance(junior) corporals, 3 corporals and a sergeant. In overall command is a commissioned officer.
When you join the army you typically go in as non commissioned as a private or commissioned as a leuitenant.
Officers are trained to lead people from the start. The lieutenant may have 1-2 years experience and the sergeant may have 16 years experience.
The next level up is a captain who commands say 3-5 platoons. At the start of saving private Ryan, Tom Hanks character was a captain in command of around 100 soldiers.
I think around 5 companies make a battalion. And that’s just soldiers.
You can also make a unit out of soldiers, engineers, artillery, transport and some other specialists like medical and cooks.
I believe a brigadier general would command a unit around this size.
To get there I would expect he worked his way up the rank, working at each level for around 2-3 years.
He would have been in the army around 15-20 years, but some people could get promoted faster.
HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Brigadier generals are nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate
U.S. law explicitly limits the total number of general officers who may be on active duty. The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 218 for the Army, 62 for the Marine Corps, 170 for the Air Force, and 21 for the Space Force.
All brigadier generals must retire after five years in grade or 30 years of service, whichever is later
If he’s a brigadier general then he’s one of the few and he’s gonna be an older dude
pinebees@lemmy.world 1 week ago
rollerbang@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I don’t remember the details but yes, further promotions do avoid mandatory retirement.