Rumsfeld gets Bashed

[Papewaio]

877 Active Duty Generals or Equivalent.

How long do they last as a General... they have to climb the command ladder and if they don't pass each rung timely enough I take it they will never get to General... but even going up at each stage would take at least 15 years? So say they get to General at between 40 and 45... how many years left of service do they have 10/15 years?

After that say the majority do retire at 55 after 10 to 15 years as a general. I assume most of them will get to 80 or 85 as they will have access to good mediciene, plenty of money and have an above average lifestyle. That is 25-30 years as a retired general... compared with 10 to 15 years as an Active Duty one... so you can expect about 2 retired generals for every active one if not a larger ration.

So there should be 1500 or so retired Generals.

So 1 out of 250 have publically made their feelings known on the issue. I wonder how many more haven't?

[Redleg]

877 Active Duty Generals or Equivalent.

How long do they last as a General... they have to climb the command ladder and if they don't pass each rung timely enough I take it they will never get to General... but even going up at each stage would take at least 15 years? So say they get to General at between 40 and 45... how many years left of service do they have 10/15 years?

15 years is a tad early. That is the normal range for promotion to Lietuant Colonel. Most officers that I know of that make General using do so after 20 years in the service. Not always since promotion to General is not dependent upon normal promotion schemes.

After that say the majority do retire at 55 after 10 to 15 years as a general. I assume most of them will get to 80 or 85 as they will have access to good mediciene, plenty of money and have an above average lifestyle. That is 25-30 years as a retired general... compared with 10 to 15 years as an Active Duty one... so you can expect about 2 retired generals for every active one if not a larger ration.

This sounds about right though.

So there should be 1500 or so retired Generals.

So 1 out of 250 have publically made their feelings known on the issue. I wonder how many more haven't?

Most I have come to beleive. Especially those who decide to stay the hell out of the political arenea.

[Hurin_Rules]

So, to sum up: Rumsfeld was exaggerating/misleading again?

[Major Robert Dump]

Yeah I'm getting all high 8s in the number of generals and admirals on active duty, I would still like to get an exact number on how many are retired, since the mandatory retirement age is soemthing like 62-64. I'm gonna go peruse some VA hospitals sites and see if I can find anything, I'm real curious if it really is thousands upon thousands.