I always thought the most useless rank in the army was major.

It's probably the same way in the Marine Corps.

Lieutenants got to run platoons, captains got companies, lieutenant colonels got battalions and colonels got regiments.

Majors had damned few command positions and were generally staff officers. If I remember it was a major that was the Bn XO was probably in a pretty good job and we had another major running the S-3 (operations) shop which I imagine sort of sucked.

It always seemed that the rank was a placeholder or a limbo of some sort. A lot of majors seemed to be annoyed all the time and tended to be a little testy on good days.

It always seemed that if I was going to have a close call with getting into trouble that it would be a major at the bottom of it.

It was a major that gave me hell for having my hands in my pockets at a Coke machine when I was digging for a quarter.

It was a major that tried sneaking up on me while I was on guard duty. What made it worse is I saw him first and set him up and got the drop on him. I was not kind and made him eagle spread.

When he got snotty about it I replied he could tell it to Danny Thompson. That made him turn white.

Some time earlier Danny had shot a lieutenant in the leg for trying to sneak past his post. The lieutenant had ignored Danny's warning so Danny opened fire. The lieutenant was lucky. He survived.

The best part was when the whole mess got sorted out Danny was exonerated of any legal wrongdoing. He didn't get off completely, though. He was sent to the range for remedial marksmanship training by the regimental CO. The lieutenant was transferred.

Knowing this, the major never did anything about the incident save to smarten up and treat the guards with a little basic respect which is something lieutenants did because even the greenest second lieutenant knew the privates had weapons and ammunition while on guard.

Still, it always seemed to me that majors were a thorn in my side during my time in the service.

The major knew this but was dumb enough to think that nobody knew the story.

I have always thought that they either ought to find something worthwhile for majors to do or eliminate the rank. It always seemed to me that the reason they pestered the lower enlisted guys is because they didn't have anything worthwhile to do.







To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY