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General
Last update: Monday 06th of September 2010
| Naval Forces | Land/Air Forces | Commonwealth Air Forces |
| Admiral | General | Air Marshal |
| Commodore1 | Brigadier1 | Group Captain2 |
| Captain2 | Colonel2 | Squadron Leader3 |
| Commander | Major3 | Flight Lieutenant4 |
| Lieutenant4 | Captain4 | Flying Officer5 |
| Ensign6 | Lieutenant5 | Pilot Officer6 |
| Warrant Officer | Warrant Officer | Warrant Officer |
| Petty Officer | Sergeant | Sergeant |
| Leading Rate | Corporal | Corporal |
| Seaman | Private | Aircraftman |
| This table shows the hierarchy of widely recognized military rank titles. Not all variants ranks in between are included. If "broadly" equivalent ranks do not appear alongside each other, they are indicated by matching numerical notation (1 being the highest). | ||
A General is an officer of high military rank. The term is used by nearly every country in the world. General may be a rank on its own (four stars, in the American military), or can be used as a generic term for all grades of General or above.
The various grades of General are at the top of the rank structure, but in some countries the highest general officers are titled Field Marshal or Marshal.
"General Officer", often referred to less formaly and imprecisely as "General", refers to a military officer who holds any rank grade of General. The exact rank of a general may be determined by combining a prefix (e.g. Major General) or suffix (e.g. General of the Army).
The rank of General came about as a "general" officer that was not specifically specialized like an infantry or artillery officer, thus a General Officer.
While historically an army rank, General is also used in many air forces, although many air forces are based on the British Royal Air Force system (e.g. UK, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria etc.) and use Air Marshal instead, with Air Officer being the generic title for general officers in these air forces. In most navies of the world, the equivalent rank is Admiral and the generic term is Flag Officer; however a noteworthy historical exception was the Cromwellian naval rank General at sea. In the Israeli Defence Forces there are no separate naval ranks and the Hebrew term Aluf can be both "General" and "Admiral". In recent years in the American service there is a tendency to use "Flag Officer" and "Flag Rank" to refer to generals and admirals of the services collectively.
The rank of General began appearing around the time of the organization of professional armies in the 17th century. At first, it was added as an adjective to existing names of ranks, yielding Colonel General, Captain General, Lieutenant General and Sergeant Major General. These titles were used to distinguish the ruler's most important officers and usually involved a certain amount of negotiation over precedence.
In general, when you have a doctor’s visit, the nurse or doctor always seem to take your Blood Pressure, Pulse, Temperature and sometimes your Pulse Oximetry. Usually the healthcare professional would use 4 diagnostic instruments to measure these vital signs.
The bill is part of the Democrat leadership’s innovative “Symbolic Governance Plan” which employs the traditional legislative process to make bold political statements instead of laws.
Although the White House and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales initially denied political pressure was applied in the wholesale dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys, e-mails released by the Justice Department to Congress March 13 (below and on the following nine pages) indicate just the opposite.
Politico.com report: Senior Democrat who spoke on condition of anonymity: "We've only had subpoena power for the last six weeks and every tree that we've barked up so far has had a cat in it, imagine where we'll be after six months." Walter Reed/felony conviction of Scooter Libby/abuse of personal data by the FBI/Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez
Author complains about Grammy awards going to the Dixie Chicks and celebrity politics in general.