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Seriously Telegraph, really?

The fallout from his trial prompted the Army’s most senior officer, Sergeant Major Glenn Haughton, to record a social media video saying:

Glenn Haughton might be all sorts of things but the Army’s most senior officer he most certainly isn’t. The Telegraph used yo know these sorts of things….

18 thoughts on “Seriously Telegraph, really?”

  1. Theres always been a certain type of Journo who deliberately mangled service ranks to show contempt for the military. They used to be confined to the Guardian, Mirror et al, but if the DT has succumbed, it’s just another sign of the decline of civilisation as we know it.

  2. Surreptitious Evil

    I’m slightly disturbed by how many of those on the SJW-bingo card apply to me (4 1/2 – Jews _are_ a race). Still, I was already booked in for a conversation with my CO about my upcoming OJAR, so I can dob myself in as “XRW” as an addendum.

  3. One assumes that the early-20s journalism “graduate” who wrote this drivel doesn’t appreciate that there’s a difference between an “officer” and a “non-commissioned officer”.

  4. I think I might have mentioned meeting an Army officer whose definition of “hero” was an NCO who abandoned his boring old wife and children for the sweet, sweet virtue of giving moustache rides to other blokes in a real life Frankie Goes To Hollywood video, and whose job in the Army is now as some sort of professional gay activist in uniform.

    It’s the militant wing of Momentum.

  5. Surreptitious Evil

    It’s the militant wing of Momentum.

    To the same extent that this place is the Newma(i)nia appreciation society.

  6. “Rob
    May 30, 2019 at 7:20 am

    He could be the senior officer in a very small army.”

    He’s that service’s most senior *non-commissioned officer* – I don’t know how you guys break it down over there, but here NCO’s are not considered part of the officer class, they’re enlisted.

  7. Surreptitious Evil

    here NCO’s are not considered part of the officer class, they’re enlisted.

    He is enlisted. But he is a Warrant Officer. And your WOs are (or at least consider themselves to be) Officer class. He doesn’t.

    Although for pendants, British Army Warrant Officers 1st Class* wear officers accoutrements (hats, shoes, Sam Browne etc) with their uniform.

    * May be all WOs in some Regts or Corps. May not in others (Household Division WO1s wear NCO pattern hats – see GSM London District, for example.)

  8. U.S. grades:

    E-1 to E-9

    W-1 to W-5

    O-1 to O-11

    A warrant officer is not an officer, he is a warrant officer.

  9. Quiz time:

    A sailor is boarding a ship. He salutes the admiral commanding the ship. The admiral returns his salute.

    The sailor is the admiral’s brother, but the admiral is not the sailor’s brother.

    How can that be?

  10. @ Gamecock
    The original version of that one (involving a doctor) is not quite as old as Chris Milller, who is not quite as old as me, who am not quite as old as the youngest son of the lady doctor in the practice that my family used when I was a child.

  11. “Gamecock
    May 30, 2019 at 10:11 pm

    A warrant officer is not an officer, he is a warrant officer.”

    A Warrant Officer is an officer – he lives with the officers, eats with the officers, wears an officer uniform, and receives a salute as an officer.

    They are not ‘commissioned’ officers, yes – they receive a warrant rather than a commission – but they are still part of the officer class in the military.

  12. “Surreptitious Evil
    May 30, 2019 at 3:57 pm

    here NCO’s are not considered part of the officer class, they’re enlisted.

    He is enlisted. But he is a Warrant Officer. And your WOs are (or at least consider themselves to be) Officer class. He doesn’t.”

    Out here, SgtMjr is a rank. And all the positions are held by enlisted, not officers (warrant or commissioned) – that includes all the way up to being the service’s Senior Enlisted Leader. So the Sgt Major of the Army or Marine Corps are enlisted.

    Because of the nature of their role, basically no officer would ever be allowed into those positions.

  13. Surreptitious Evil

    WO1 Haughton has been Army Sergeant Major (same thing as Sergeant Major of the Army) and now is the Senior Enlisted Advisor to our Chiefs of Staff.

  14. Surreptitious Evil

    If you want some commentary (and endless pisstaking) about the difference between British and US WOs (normally started by ‘do British soldiers salute US WOs’), ARRSE has some brilliant threads.

  15. I never met a warrant officer when I was in the U.S. Air Force. They only ones I ever even heard of in the U.S. military were Army helicopter pilots.

    So, Agammamon, I’ll have to take your word for what they think of themselves. It wasn’t an issue in the Air Force because there weren’t any.

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