Currently General Petraeus has a fourth star only by virtue of his current command, and if he isn’t confirmed by the Senate he will lose that star when he leaves the command.
They stopped using the term Brevet, but that is the system. In a entry below I have a link to an entry on Patton. Go and look at his dates of rank and you will see he dropped two stars at the end of the war and then gained them back.
Normally officers retire if they can after something like this, but they can be demoted, just not in the same fashion as enlisted personal because of the Senate confirmation process.
Actually RL, NORAD was waiting on permission, just like Northern Command was waiting on permission after Katrina came ashore. Having a military doesn’t do you much good if you forget to allow them to act.
My Dad dealt with nukes the last half of his career in the Air Force, and I watched what the Soviets did with theirs when I was in. Being stationed on SAC bases and flying on classified aircraft, I can tell you that there is no way this could have happened 30 years ago. At Offutt you had my mission in RC-135s, the Looking Glass airborne command post mission, and the B-52s. You did not wander into the wrong area. Everyone on that flight line had a clearance for everything, but you did not wander into the wrong area.
]]>Whig, initial reports said that five missiles were loaded at Minot, which was stupid because they are mounted as groups of three. That was changed to six almost immediately, but not everyone caught up with the change and continued using five for their reporting.
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