wow:

Actually commodore is less of a separate rank than it is a separate billet. In the US Navy every military job is a billet, deriving I believe from an assigned berth, called a billet.

The flag ranks in the Navy are:

O (for officer) -7 Rear Admiral, lower half
O-8 Rear Admiral, upper half
O-9 Vice Admiral
O-10 Admiral.

At one time there were equal numbers of O-7s and O-8s, and they were divided literally into two groups, the lower and upper halves. I believe that is no longer the case, but I will check Monday at work (I work in the office of the Government that pays all the military, so these things are all pretty much second nature to me.

There were certain billets in the Navy that were Commodore billets, and O-7s assigned to them had the same rank, but were addressed as commoder, rather than admiral. Some time back I heard they had reinstated this courtesy title, but I've not run into one of them. They are in the combat side, I'm in the finance side.

The equivalent officers in the Army, AF and Marine Corps are brigadier general, major general, lieutenant general, and general, respectively. I heard of a major general who was at a cocktail party in DC where this sweet young thing kept addressing him as major. Finally he turned to her and said, "I am a major general, and I can only thank God that I'm not a rear admiral."

BTW, the next lower rank in the Navy is O-6, captain, but the commanding officer of any naval vessel regardless of rank is the captain of the ship and is so addressed, though he or she will wear only the rank attained (along with the pay for that rank.)

TdE

The walking fount of totally useless and boring information



TEd