A couple of lessons on military rank for G. I. Joe screenwriters

If you want military accuracy on the big screen, a G. I. Joe movie is the last place you should be looking for it. You know, I could write an entire book nitpicking either G. I. Joe: Rise of Cobra or the latest installment, but I am not so inclined. But there are two details in G. I. Joe: Retaliation which compel me to address the lack of military accuracy in that film.

First of all, early on Duke (Channing Tatum) tells Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) that he has to "take" his next promotion. Is Roadblock dodging promotion? That sort of thing might make sense on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it does not really make sense in the context of today's military, in which rank is considered to be of paramount importance.

Consider for example that promotions to some of the lower enlisted ranks are almost automatic: if you are a Pfc with no bad marks in your SRB, you're going to be a Lance Corporal well before the halfway mark of your enlistment contract. Consider also that there is attrition due to rank stagnation: maybe you can be a Staff Sergeant though an entire 4-year contract. But if you're not in line to make Gunnery Sergeant, you should probably not bother to apply for reenlistment. Yeah, I know, those are Marine ranks. Maybe the Army is a little more lenient about soldiers who get stuck at a particular rank. But probably just a little.

The other detail that compelled me to write this is when Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) tells Duke that she wanted to outrank her father so that he would have to salute her. I'm not going to try to psychoanalyze Jaye to determine why that would make sense as a motivation for her.

But I will question why she chose to enlist (as opposed to trying to get into a military academy and becoming a commissioned officer) if being saluted by her father was indeed her goal. A Staff Sergeant outranks a Sergeant, but a Sergeant does not salute a Staff Sergeant. Someone a Sergeant does salute is a Second Lieutenant, even one who just got her gold bars.

Lady Jaye's plan becomes completely nonsensical if her father was an officer to begin with. Let's say Lord Jaye was a Lt. Colonel. A Lt. Colonel salutes Colonels and Generals. But not Second Lieutenants. Unless that Second Lieutenant won a Medal of Honor... At the end of the movie, General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis) salutes Lady Jaye, substituting Jaye's now defunct father. Yeah... okay... sure, whatever.