Understanding Military Rank Through Film – Part Two
Click here for part one. Now it’s time for the officers…
Second Lieutenant
I’m trying not to use the same movie twice, but there aren’t a lot of these on film, so…
2nd Lt. Jack Geoghegan (Chris Klein) in We Were Soldiers.
First Lieutenant
Not all that much difference in rank from Second, apparently…
First Lieutenant John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) in Dances With Wolves.
Captain
Trivia: This is equivalent to a lieutenant in the Navy.
Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) in Pulp Fiction.
Major
At this point you go from being a junior officer to a senior officer.
Okay, wrong army, but the bad guy in Casablanca is a major. Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) on the left.
Lieutenant Colonel
Now you’re just putting ranks together…
Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now.
Colonel
The one with the most bad-ass insignia. An eagle.
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) in Glory.
Brigadier General
Just as there are many sergeants, there are many generals. This is one star.
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) in Dr. Strangelove.
Major General
Two stars. You can see where this is going.
Major General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) in The Siege.
Lieutenant General
If this one’s too real…
George C. Scott as Lieutenant General Patton in, um, Patton.
We can always pretend that Lando Calrissian who, in fact, achieved the rank of general…
Was a three star general.
General
When you reach four stars, just “general” will do, thank you.
General Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) in The Incredible Hulk. You wouldn’t like it when he gets angry, either.
General of the Army
Five stars. The highest possible rank in the army. Only exists during wartime. Exactly eight people have held the position, and only five since it was designated with five stars (in 1944). One of those men was…
Douglas MacArthur, played by Gregory Peck in MacArthur.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
This has been so outrageously educational! Thank you!
July 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
No problem. I’m just glad I’m not the only one who thought it might be useful.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Over the course of the movie, Patton actually goes from being a three-star to a four-star general. But now that I think about it, the scene in the screen grab is right at the beginning of the movie, and he was a three-star at that point.
It’s probably worth noting that these officer ranks really only apply to the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corp. (Which means you could have also used characters from, say, “Full Metal Jacket” or “Stargate” to illustrate your points.) As you pointed out, the Navy has their own, separate rank system.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Stargate, nice. I didn’t realize the marines were the same (I used Pvt. Joker in part one without realizing that he was a marine). If so, I probably would have also looked at the Colonial Marines in Aliens. In addition to the Navy, there’s also foreign ranks and I’m considering doing one on police ranks in the future.
And does BSG use Navy ranks? (I’m guessing yes since Adama is an Admiral).
July 29th, 2008 at 2:31 am
BSG’s rank system, from what I can tell, is some sort of combination of the two US military systems – a Commander (Navy) is below an Admiral (Navy), but higher in rank than a Major or Captain (A/AF/M). Either that, or some officers are considered to be ‘fleet’ (Navy) and others ‘infantry’ (we know there are Marines on board Galactica), but they’re all somehow in the same chain of command. Either way, it’s all frakked up. I keep waiting for a Field Marshall to show up.
I think the major differences between the Army, AF, and Marine systems are at the enlisted level, but the officer corp seems to be aligned. So you could have used Col. Jack O’Neill (Kurt Russell if you want to be literal about the cinematic version, but for my money Richard Dean Anderson owns the O’Neill character) if you had wanted a more modern example.
I don’t know about the Colonial Marines, tho – that might be stretching things. Why not use examples from “Starship Troopers” while you’re at it? =)