Several years ago I was working as a defense contractor on a project in the Middle East. We had hired a former Army General to be a program manager.
The program director introduced me to the general and mentioned that I was a former Marine. Of course the general wanted to know my rank and I explained that I was a Lance Corporal. He looked down his nose and in a condescending tone said “I had assumed you were an officer.” I explained that I enlisted during the Vietnam Era and later went on to college under the G.I. Bill. He asked me if I had any regrets about not going in as an officer. I said, “No sir, I would still rather be a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps than a General in the Army.”
Apparently, he was such an arrogant ass that no one in-country could get along with him and he was sent home. Of course the general never knew that my father was a corporal with the Marines in the Pacific during WWII and was one of the bravest men then and throughout his life that I had ever known.
