My uncle retired as a colonel. He never acted like he was in charge, but everyone in the family seemed to defer to him – even my father, his older brother.
I think the highest I ever met was an Air Force Colonel. He was in the same squadron as my dad for a while in the mid-'70s, and must have liked the area. Then he got a diplomatic posting in the Middle East that lasted longer than planned. He retired and moved back to the area and lived on my paper route. I met him a few times when I was collecting; seemed like quite a guy.
The only general I ever knew was a really nice guy.
When he was in college, he generally spent his summers working for my parents on the farm. When I told my mother that he had just been promoted to general, her response was something like “He used to help me wash dishes.”
A friend of my parents from synagogue was an admiral (the Israeli equivalent of O-7). Nice guy, laid back, and a real mensch - the kind of guy that when he talked, you listened. He was an Iraqi Jew, which made him stand out in their largely Anglophone Conservative shul, and when he read the Torah he would do so in a very Mizrahi style, which I loved. He came to my parents’ shivas every day when they passed.
I met a retired admiral a few times because he was an alumnus of my fraternity at college, and once in a while we would have events where we invited alumnae to come and visit and catch up with each other.
Anyway, he was a pleasant man whom I enjoyed talking with.
I met a retired general, in an really remote Tanzanian army post on the island of Pemba, a semi-autonymous part of the country. Pemba is completely not tourist friendly except for the super-rich, and I really needed a beer, and the closest bar was in the army barracks.
We got a little drunk together in the officer’s mess.
He was cool.
In fairness, he was also responsible for the Berlin Airlift, which fed all of West Berlin during the siege.
My life has been rife with Generals and Admirals of every stripe and star. My Dad was a West Point grad, and an Airborne Ranger who served three tours in Viet Nam. My Uncle was a Colonel and his daughter also went to West Point and is currently a Colonel. So I grew up around generals and generals-to-be. I worked with admirals at NAVSEA. My best friend in kindergarten was the daughter of a Colonel named Norman Schwarzkopf.
One of the reasons I did well in my career was that they never intimidated me. It’s one of the perks of growing up in the DC suburbs. They are just people, doing difficult work, with fewer resources than they would like to have. Most of the time, the people who rise are those who know how to get along with others. And to answer the question more directly, I don’t think they survive that long if they don’t learn how to relax.
I can only think of one admiral who really leaned on his rank, and he went down hard after tailhook. Nobody in our office was particularly sorry to see him go.
I know 2 retired Rear Admirals. One was a mustang that I served with. The other I’ve known since 2nd grade. Both are down to earth normal guys. I mostly interact with the former on social media, and the latter I still talk to in person on a fairly regular basis. I never served under him, but we were both in the intelligence community, so there are a lot of interesting conversations about current events.
Kinda not exactly answering the question, but waaaaaaay back in the early 80s, I was a brand new ensign in the Pentagon (talk about bottom of the pyramid) and there were 2 admirals over the group where I was assigned.
The 2-star was a real ass. This was when the Wang word processor was a brand new thing, so he had no problems with randomly changing commas in any piece of correspondence that came across his desk for approval so the secretary had to redo it, including carbons! It felt as if that’s how he justified his existence. And his wife would introduce herself as “Mrs. Admiral Whatever” as if his rank included her.
The 3-star above him was quite the opposite. For example, we were going to have an organization picnic and he had a bunch of soda at his house, so I had to go there to pick it up (bottom of the pile, I was.) When I showed up, he was there helping me load my car! And his wife was just as nice as could be. He’s long since died, but I expect in retirement he didn’t change a bit.