Major (United States)
military rank of the United States
In the United States Army, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, major is a field officer above the rank of captain and below the rank of lieutenant colonel. It is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant commander in the Navy and Coast Guard. Although lieutenant commanders are considered junior officers by their services, majors are senior officers.
The pay grade for the rank of major is O-4. The insignia for the rank consists of a golden oak leaf, with slight stylized differences between the versions of the different services. Promotion to the rank of major is governed by the Department of Defense policies derived from the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980.
Army
A major in the U.S. Army typically serves as a battalion executive officer (XO) or as the battalion operations officer (S3). Majors can also serve as company commanding officers, a major can also serve as a primary staff officer for a regiment, brigade or task force in the areas concerning personnel, logistics, intelligence, and operations. A major will also be a staff officer / action officer on higher staffs and headquarters. In addition, majors command augmented companies in Combat Service and Service Support units.
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This entry incorporates text from “Major (United States)” 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.