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Saluting - The Final Chapter. (We hope!)

Dr. Drill

You can submit your questions to Dr. Drill via e-mail to : DrDrill@CadetStuff.org.

Dear Dr. Drill,

I would like to present a solution to a saluting situation that is unclear in the manuals. Is this solution supported in regulations?

The situation involves an enlisted soldier being accompanied by a senior officer. As a junior officer passes, does the soldier salute the junior while that officer is saluting the senior officer? I believe the enlisted soldier is obligated to render the greeting of the day and to respectfully recognize the junior officer. This courtesy is obligated while passing indoors by Customs and Courtesies regulations.

As a subordinate I always respectfully acknowledge the passing officer with "Good Afternoon, sir" while the senior officer returns the salute.

C/LtCol Spillane
Civil Air Patrol PA Wing

Dr. Drill,

I have been scouring the internet, FMs, DA Pams and ARs to find the answer to a variation of the question you recently posted. I am currently deployed to Iraq and am in a healthy debate with a colleague of mine. So here is the question:

When two officers are walking together, with the lower ranking to the left of the higher ranking, and an enlisted soldier passes and renders the proper salute, is it just the senior ranking officer who returns the salute or is it both?

I know you addressed this in you answer, but I am hoping that you may have found a more definitive regulation that states the answers. Everyone I have asked here comes up with a different answer (including the BDE CSM). Perhaps you can help.

Respectfully,

2LT Kate McIsaac
4th Detachment Regulators
4/394th AG CO (Postal)
FOB Warhorse

Dr. Drill,

Situation 1: A colonel and a lieutenant are walking together, and a sergeant salutes. BOTH officers return the salute.

Situation 2: A colonel and a lieutenant are walking together, and a captain approaches. The captain salutes the senior officer, and the colonel AND the lieutenant return the salute.

John Kachenmeister

Dr Drill responds


This question about who salutes when has generated more mail than anything I can remember for a long time. However, I'm still going to have to go with my first response: everyone salutes everyone else. Those of lower rank salute those of higher rank who approach or whom they approach, and those of higher rank return those salutes.

That's my prescription and I'm sticking with it...

Thanks for writing, everyone!

Dr. Drill

Caution: Dr. Drill isn't always one hundred percent serious. Please activate your Joke Detectors. And don't call us when you find yourself explaining to a membership termination board why you used a staple gun to keep a cadet's hands at his sides during "To The Rear, March". All we're going to say on your behalf is "Duh!"

And if you find yourself on the bad end of a serious counseling because you decided to go toe-to-toe with your squadron commander over the position of the guide during a squadron-in-mass formation or something similarly trivial, well, we're just going to point, laugh and call you names!

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