Fault isn’t the right word. If someone doesn’t notice a salute, they just don’t notice it. Regardless, it is permitted to terminate a salute–even if the salute was not returned by the senior–once you are 6 paces away.
Oh that’s interesting. I hadn’t heard of this rule before. Ok then, suppose you salute a senior officer, she doesn’t see it and turns and starts walking away. Then 4 paces away, she stops and starts talking to someone else. Is there another rule that lets you terminate the salute?
Common sense prevails.
Though, you could always take a couple steps yourself and you’re good.
I’ve found the whole comic on archive.org.
When I was a new enlisted in the USAF, I was told this about saluting: When in doubt, whip it out.
Relevant panel from the excellent comic strip Terminal Lance.
There’s the official rules, and then there’s…
“Get your hands down. Do not salute me. There are goddamn snipers all around this area who’d love to grease an officer.”
—Lieutenant Dan
Interesting. I’ve visited the Wayback Machine but not this site.
While waiting for my nuclear power school class to start, I was sent to a NAS for busywork, and spentone day out of 8 being a gate guard.
I was told to salute stickers, but I only did when someone in the front seat was in uniform.
Some Mrs. Lieutenants were annoyed by this. Only one male was. One helmeted motorcycle rider did not pass through and revved his engine at me. I repeated the elbow-height ‘move along’ twice, he finally left.
This was never worth anyone’s time to worry about, but what is funny is that 2 weeks after starting school, I was hauled in to see the Training Officer (normally one saw him only at the welcoming). I had been written up by the previous command for UA, not showing up for gate guard watch. When I protested, they checked the date- and it was after I reported to NPS. Someone messed up despite the checkout form the NAS had kindly provided me.
I had read that as well, that enlisted guys are expressly NOT to salute any officers when the enemy may be watching.
Unit SOP generally dictates no saluting in combat zones…for a long time.
With the exception of recent giant FOBs
Some units take this as far as not saluting in combat gear.
So while it was cleverly presented, it wasn’t novel, or breaking rules.
I don’t think he had a rifle for that scene but …
Also while carrying a rifle the salute is not a hand salute unless the rifle is slung or shouldered. From a carry position you go to present arms.
Which makes sense because it likely evolved from showing you were unarmed.
In practicality this is very rarely done outside drill and ceremony because typically if you’re carrying at low ready you’re probably in a no salute zone of some kind or on a duty that precludes it anyhow.
Ok, wait, I’m confused. Everyone upthread seems to agree that you don’t salute indoors unless “reporting”, and in #6 Loach says that “reporting” refers to specific and mostly formal occasions, not every time you visit an officer. But on the last page of the comic linked in #24, Private Brown goes to see the company commander in his office to ask him something about his leave (basically the exact situation in the Dick van Dyke episode) and Brown salutes when he enters the commander’s office. Why does he do that?
When I was in a navy detachment that was a tenant-command on an army base I had a corporal beg me how to tell the difference between a Chief Petty Officer (senior NCO) and commissioned officer. We lesser ranks still had the Crackerjack uniforms at the time and he had no trouble IDing us, but the CPOs and officers did have pretty similar uniforms if you did not know what to look for. I told him the easiest was the hat. If there was an anchor on it, he was a CPO. If there was an eagle on it, officer, especially if there are scrambled eggs involved.
OTOH the army was experimenting with women officers’ uniforms at the time and once at the doorway of the post office I passed a LT in a spring green dress with brass buttons down the front and I was several steps past before I realized it. Luckily she either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
Private Caparzo: And another thing, every time you salute the Captain, you make him a target for the Germans. Do us a favor. Don’t do it. Especially when I’m standing next to him, capisci?
As robby said, the services vary a bit in their rules and had things correct for most circumstances, but there were two exceptions I’ve not seen mentioned.
If you are burdened – i.e. carrying two sacks of groceries – you need not salute but acknowledge the officer with a nod and greeting.
If you are actively engaged in your work – i.e. painting something you just chipped – you need not salute. In practice, on board ship a work party is usually under the watchful eye of a petty officer who’s not that busy, and (s)he salutes for the party.
IIRC, on board ship you salute only the first time that day you bump into an officer as you are in a lot closer proximity with your division officer on a DD than you are on a land base but 1) This was 40 years ago and 2) I never served on a ship, so this may be incorrect.
He was reporting. Things were more formal back when that comic was made. A simple conversation like that wouldn’t really require all of that pomp. I assume that back in the day, it did. Hell, soldiers don’t even need to check with the 1SG to get permission to speak to the commander anymore. So many formalities have gone away.
We don’t salute civilian women anymore either.
It’s even easier to look for the black vs. gold decorative [and essentially non-functional] chin strap.
This is correct. On a submarine, it’s even less of a concern, as you are almost always inside and below decks. While people do often wear command ball caps below decks, there is no saluting below decks on a submarine unless there is a formal proceeding taking place, such as a Captain’s Mast.
A submarine at sea is generally surfaced only when going in and out of port, and anyone above decks then is either part of the conning party (e.g. lookout) or in a working party, and none of them are worrying about saluting.
After a deployment, we had to get used to saluting again when walking down the pier, after months of not worrying about it. As a junior officer, it was particularly easy to forget to salute a shipmate who was a higher-ranking peer (like an Ensign meeting a recently-promoted LTJG). As an Ensign, I saluted a friend on the pier who had just been promoted to LTJG (shortly before I was promoted as well). He returned the salute with a friendly, “Fuck you.” A few weeks later, I was promoted to LTJG and didn’t have to salute him anymore.
It’s different in the army. I was an officer for a while. As the saying goes there is no honor among lieutenants. If you had one bar on your shoulder it didn’t matter what color it was you didn’t salute someone else with one bar. There’s nothing formal saying that but that’s the way it is. It’s tradition to for a 1LT to yell at a new butterbar for saluting him. The same goes for all grades of warrant officer.
In World War II, my father was in the U.S. Army Air Forces. His squadron was stationed at an air base in India. The guards at the front gate were Gurkhas in the British army. At the time, the rule was that the driver of a car would not salute, but the passengers would. The American pilots tended to be a bit lax. One day, a memo came down from on high, asking them to return the salutes of the sentries. The Gurkhas had been feeling insulted.
Actually, it sounds more or less the same. By the rules, an Ensign (O-1) is supposed to salute a LTJG (O-2). In practice, they rarely do so, especially if they know each other and nobody else is around. By saluting my buddy, it was more mock courtesy than anything else, hence the friendly “Fuck you” in response (along with a return salute).
So going back to my example above, a better example would probably be an Ensign forgetting to salute one of the LTs (O-3), who would likely give you shit for not saluting them.
He was a short corporal.
Once on Okinawa when the winds were very high (a typhoon was imminent) I saw a JG climb out of his car with his chin strap deployed.
Well, it’s hard to spot those little enamel interruptions, never mind counting them.
One does not want to annoy a Gurkha.
That was Dad’s reaction. 