Tombstone promotion

Tombstone promotions have also been granted to honor exceptional individual service, such as building the Panama Canal or commendable performance in combat.

A decade later, the outgoing secretary of the Navy recommended compelling officers to retire for age or incapacity, with an honorary one-rank promotion to soften the blow.

[2] The Navy Personnel Act of 1899 was a sweeping reform designed to revitalize the officer corps, especially at command ranks, by weeding out superannuated Civil War veterans.

[4] Since the point of the law was to open more vacancies in higher ranks, Congress offered the same tombstone promotion to officers who retired voluntarily.

[1] The Army, which had its own Civil War hump to flatten, created the equivalent of a tombstone promotion by advancing officers shortly before they retired, often with only a single day in the higher grade.

The same promotions were offered to James W. Forsyth and Zenas R. Bliss, on the condition that they retired after a week, allowing Brooke to become an active major general.

In 1883, Asiatic Station commander Peirce Crosby agreed to step down a few months early so Alexander C. Rhind could be promoted to rear admiral the day before reaching retirement age.

[20] This largely ended the succession of one-day generals, except for occasional coincidences of age and deliberate promotions of incapacitated officers.

Under this provision, Edgar Jadwin retired as a lieutenant general in 1929 and James F. Leys as a vice admiral in 1932, the first Army engineer and first Navy surgeon, respectively, to achieve three-star rank.

[32] Although intended for captains, the wording of the law allowed staff corps officers of any rank to retire as a commodore after enough years of service.

[36][37] After the Attorney General of the United States confirmed that Terry was entitled to his tombstone promotion, the Navy began appealing for Congress to stop lieutenants from retiring as commodores.

[44] Captains who only reached flag rank by retiring with an honorary combat citation promotion were derisively nicknamed "tombstone admirals".

Dismukes had commanded the transport Mount Vernon during World War I, and was decorated for saving the ship after it was torpedoed by a German submarine while returning to the United States with more than 1,600 passengers, including Minnesota congressman Thomas D.

[52][53] In 1943, the Department of the Navy unsuccessfully asked Congress to restrict tombstone promotions to commendations awarded before the President declared a state of emergency on September 8, 1939, following the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

[54][55] The Officer Personnel Act of 1947 consolidated all of the various tombstone promotion laws, and limited eligibility to combat citations awarded before the end of World War II, defined as December 31, 1946.

[64] An early draft of the Career Compensation Act of 1949 would have granted tombstone promotions in the Army for combat citations awarded up to December 31, 1946, the same as in the Navy.

Army personnel chief John E. Dahlquist gave this expansion of the 1925 tombstone promotion law, disparagingly dubbed "the hero act", his unenthusiastic endorsement.

[65] For example, Army officer John G. Hill graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1924 and was selected for temporary brigadier general in 1953, confirmed by the Senate in January 1954, and retired in that grade seven months later, after 30 years of service.

[66] Navy officer Eugene T. Seaward graduated from the United States Naval Academy, also in 1924, and received a tombstone promotion to rear admiral when he retired 30 years later.

[69] Asked by Senator Howard Cannon, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Air Force Reserve colonel, whether it would be better to expand tombstone promotions to the Army and Air Force or to eliminate them entirely, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel Charles C. Finucane replied that the Department of Defense opposed expanding tombstone promotions, since they devalued higher ranks, but had not pushed to eliminate them because officers had been led to expect them for decades and they would end automatically once every officer with a World War II combat citation had retired.

"[69] To the Navy's surprise, Cannon sponsored an amendment to terminate all tombstone promotions on November 1, 1959, which he attached to a bill passed on August 11, 1959, to flatten the hump of excess officers who entered the service during World War II.

Fearing a flood of hasty retirements that would wreak havoc with overseas assignments, the Navy lobbied to postpone the deadline until July 2, 1960, but Cannon blocked any extension.

[72][73] The President can use his plenary power under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution to nominate any officer to be retired in a higher grade, subject to Senate confirmation.

[81] Until the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, AJAG tombstone promotions conferred the retired pay of the higher rank.

The House of Representatives passed a bill to establish the JAG Corps with two AJAGs of the Navy in the grades of rear admiral or brigadier general.

[84] Many states allow retiring National Guard officers with enough years of service to request a tombstone promotion to the next higher grade.

[96] Exceptions included first sea lord and chief of naval staff David Luce, who forfeited promotion to admiral of the fleet by resigning to protest the cancellation of the CVA-01 aircraft carrier program in 1966,[97] and chief of general staff Peter Hunt, who declined promotion to field marshal when he retired in 1976 because he had presided over deep cutbacks in Army personnel during his term.

Army regulations granted one promotion at retirement for each of the following: more than 35 years of service, combat against the Communist uprising of 1935, and participation in World War II.

Castelo Branco called the practice absurd, but it persisted because the only living marechal to hold that rank on active duty, João Baptista Mascarenhas de Morais, had commanded the Brazilian Expeditionary Force during World War II and wanted to preserve tombstone promotions for his former soldiers.

[101] Castelo Branco, who was himself advanced to marechal when he retired from the Army the day before being inaugurated President of Brazil on April 15, 1964, ordered an end to tombstone promotions on December 16, 1965, effective October 9, 1966.