Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
second highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Marine Corps
The assistant commandant of the Marine Corps (ACMC) is the second highest-ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps, and serves as a deputy for the commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). Before 1946, the title was known as the assistant to the commandant.
The assistant commandant is nominated for appointment by the president and must be confirmed via majority vote by the Senate. If the commandant is absent or is unable to perform his duties, then the assistant commandant assumes the duties and responsibilities of the commandant. For this reason, the assistant commandant is appointed to a rank equal to the sitting commandant; since 1971, each assistant commandant has been, by statute, a four-star general, making it the most common rank held among marines serving this position. Additionally, he may perform other duties that the CMC assigns to him. Historically, the assistant commandant has served for two to three years. In recent decades, the assistant commandant has frequently been a Marine aviator. James F. Amos was the first aviator to serve as the assistant commandant and then be promoted to commandant.
The first marine to hold the billet as the "assistant to the commandant" was Eli K. Cole (Allen H. Turnage being the last), while Lemuel C. Shepherd Jr.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps” is second highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Assistant, Commandant and Marine, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “second highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Marine Corps” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2655568. The first chronological checks are 1946 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.