To make things slightly more confusing - although rank is clear, one also considers appointment. For example, a Sgt or Master Corporal may be an instructor on an Officer’s course. Technically his students out-rank him, but he is an instructor and therefore by appointment is in a position of authority.
Not a military situation but I worked for the NYS Department of Corrections where the “starting” rank was Correction Officer. Then you had Sergeants, Lieutenants, and Captains above them (there was also one Colonel). So Sergeants outranked Officers. I think this is not uncommon in law enforcement agencies.
Not as a rank, but as an informal title. When I was on a submarine, the submarine squadron (a handful of submarines) Commanding Officer was referred to as “the Commodore”. He was an O-6, a Navy Captain.
Heck, I don’t know, I’m sure I screwed it up. Substitute “down a hallway” to “through a forest.”
What’s that old story about Dwight Eisenhower and his son during WWII? His son had just graduated West Point as a 2nd Lieutenant and was assigned to his father in London as an aide or some-such. His son asked him about saluting protocol, and he said something like, “All you have to remember is that everyone salutes me, and you salute everyone.”
One thing to add for the United States: technically, civilians have military grade equivalents as well.
The General Schedule lines up nicely with military grades, particularly for officers. Thus, a GS-15 is equivalent to an O-6 Colonel/Captain, a GS-14 to an O-5 LTC, etc. on down. The Senior Executive Service civilian ranks are equivalent to flag officers.
In principle, this jibes with civilian control of the military. In practice, it can mean all sorts of things-- most often, any civilian considering themselves wise is smart enough not to invoke these grade equivalents at all. Lord knows, I may have technically “outranked” military folks working with me, but unless I was clearly their manager, I never presumed to order them around-- that’s for the military to worry about. Heck, once you get up to the senior GS ranks, unless you’re dealing with very junior officers, you can’t go wrong with “sir” and “m’am”, even if you outrank them-- simple respect for the uniform and all, and understanding that it’s a LOT harder to make Colonel than it is GS-15 for all the obvious reasons.
Back when I was in the military, my last assignment was at a military school in which my boss (and her boss) were both civilians. (My boss’s boss reported to the CO of the school, who was a senior military officer.) For anything related to doing my job, I went to my civilian boss. For any purely military matter, there was a dual chain-of-command–I reported to the Senior Military Instructor, who reported to the XO, who reported to the CO.
While this might sound cumbersome and confusing, the system actually worked quite well.
I had the same situation during my last tour, when I was attached to the Department of State. I worked for a civilian Foreign Service Officer at post, but reported to my military chain back in WDC. Never had a conflict in four years.
Back to the OP – Is there any reason why they should all be the same? If you are in the military it’s not difficult to learn the system you’re working in and to learn enough of the adjacent systems in order to get by when you need to.
Usually in wartime. Also, I knew a man in the Navy by the name of Commodore Forte. He was the head of the Civil Engineering Corps (CEC) branch at the time, so never had a squadron of anything. However, he was the leader of 8-10 Seabee battalions.
Chefguy,
There is no "super-master-cheif sergeant, dammit. Super Duper Cheif Master better than other branches E-9 Sergeants abound, though. 1% (unless deploying on a joint environment, then EVERYONE wears that rank).
Really though, it goes Master, Senior Master, then Cheif Master Sergeant for E-7,8, and 9.
The other contemporary usage of “commodore” is as a courtesy rank for an officer holding the actual rank of Captain when he or she is on a vessel they don’t command. An example might be a Captain on the staff of a Rear Admiral while on a ship in the Admirals task force. Part of the only-one-captain thing.
Not to disappoint, they changed it since then. Now, Buck Sgt has gone away; AB,
A1C, SrA. When someone makes E-5, they are a Staff Sergeant, stars are all colored now (white or blue, depending on uniform). We change uniforms and ranks WAAAYYY too often.
Same idea: he commanded a group of multiple units. Perhaps a majority of Western navies (save notably for Britain & the Commonwealth nations) by the early 20th Century adopted a scale where ranks skip directly from Captain to Rear Admiral, with Commodore being the job described above. The US adopted such a system in 1899.
Under that scheme in USN you went from Captain to 2-star Rear Admiral, but those RADMs who were below the median seniority of the group - literally, the lower half or the RADMs - were paid at the rate for 1-star brigadier generals of the land services. All still wore the 2 stars, or a wide band of braid + 1 regular braid on the cuffs.
The US briefly revived Commodore as a distinct operational rank during WW2, giving it the 1-star (or a single wide band of braid on the cuff) insignia, then upon shrinking post-war reverted to the system of lower and upper half of Rear Admirals (no idea if the differentiation by seniority remained or if at some point between 1948 and 1981 the move from lower to upper half became an actual promotion, anyone know?)
During the first Reagan administration they again revived it as “Commodore Admiral” a proper permanent O7 rank, wearing the WW2 Commodore insignia and from which it took an actual promotion to make RADM. Apparently this was less than buoyantly received, and by early in Ron’s second term the decision was made to instead bring back the term “Rear Admiral(LH)” for that rank and grade, wearing the O7 insignia, and from which an actual promotion is required to move on to (UH).
In the (UK) Royal Navy and RAF, commodore denoted an officer commanding - ie., a temporary “status boost”, rather than a promotion, given to captains so they could command squadrons.
I think the RN has permanent commodores now. I don’t know what they do.
Colonel Sanders is a Kentucky Colonel, which is a civilian appointment.
Robert “Sergeant Slaughter” Remus was a Marine Gunnery Sergeant before becoming a pro wrestler, so while he doesn’t have to salute Colonel Sanders, he does have to salute General Norman Schwarzkopf, who is also a Kentucky Colonel.