1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Commendation Medal
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The Commendation Medal is a mid-level United States military decoration which is presented for sustained acts of heroism or meritorious service. The Commendation Medal was originally only a ribbon and was first awarded by the U. S. Navy. An Army Commendation Ribbon followed in 1945, and in 1949, the Navy, Coast Guard, by 1960, the Commendation Ribbons had been authorized as full medals and were subsequently referred to as Commendation Medals. Additional awards of the Army and Air Force Commendation Medals are denoted by bronze, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal and Coast Guard Commendation Medal are authorized gold and silver 5/16 inch stars to denote additional awards. The Operational Distinguishing Device is authorized for wear on the Coast Guard Commendation Medal upon approval of the awarding authority, order of Precedence is following the Bronze Star Medal but before the Prisoner of War Medal and all campaign medals. Each of the services also awards separate Achievement Medals which are below the Commendation Medals in precedence. This award is intended for service on a joint military staff and is senior in precedence to service-specific Commendation Medals. As such, it is worn above the service Commendation Medals on a military uniform. S, Army after December 6,1941, distinguished themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service. Approval of the award must be made by an officer in the grade of Colonel or higher, the medallion of the Army Commendation Medal is a bronze hexagon, 1 3⁄8 inches wide. On the medallion is an American bald eagle with wings spread horizontally, on its breast is a shield paly of thirteen pieces and a chief. The reverse bears a panel for naming between the words FOR MILITARY above and MERIT below, all placed above a laurel sprig, the ribbon is 1 3⁄8 inches wide primarily of myrtle green. It is edged in white and in the center are five thin white stripes spaced equally apart, devices Oak leaf cluster and V Device The U. S. Air Force began issuing its own Air Force Commendation Medal in 1958 with additional awards denoted by oak leaf clusters. Prior to this time, USAF recipients received the Army Commendation Medal and it was not until 1996 that the V device was authorized on the Air Force Commendation Medal, prior to 1996, there was not a valor distinction in effect for the Air Force Commendation Medal. For USAF enlisted personnel, the Air Force Commendation Medal is worth three points under the Air Force enlisted promotion system, approval of the award must be made by an officer in the grade of Colonel or higher. The Air Force Commendation Medal is a bronze hexagonal medallion, on the medallion is a shield surmounted by an eagle superimposed over clouds. On the shield bears a pair of wings and a vertical baton with an eagles claw at either end, behind the shield are eight lightning bolts. The design on the shield is derived from the Seal of the Department of the Air Force, the ribbon of the Air Force Commendation Medal is golden yellow with blue edges. In the center are three bands of blue, the stripes are thin with the center stripe being wider
3.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
4.
Legion of Honour
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The Legion of Honour, full name National Order of the Legion of Honour, is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction, Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier and Grand-Croix. The orders motto is Honneur et Patrie and its seat is the Palais de la Légion dHonneur next to the Musée dOrsay, in the French Revolution, all French orders of chivalry were abolished, and replaced with Weapons of Honour. The Légion however did use the organization of old French orders of chivalry, the badges of the legion also bear a resemblance to the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon. Napoleon originally created this to ensure political loyalty, the organization would be used as a facade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, the highest rank was not a grand cross but a Grand Aigle, a rank that wore all the insignia common to grand crosses. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously,5,000 francs to an officier,2,000 francs to a commandeur,1,000 francs to an officier,250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led, do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning. That is good only for the scholar in his study, the soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards. This has been quoted as It is with such baubles that men are led. The order was the first modern order of merit, under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, and all knights had to be noblemen. The military decorations were the perks of the officers, the Légion, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn in the Légion and it is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion is a secular institution. The jewel of the Légion has five arms, in a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand Aigle. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the legion among his family and this collar was abolished in 1815. The Légion dhonneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire, the Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time
5.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
6.
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
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The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only federal decoration of Germany. It was created by the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss, on 7 September 1951, and has been awarded to over 200,000 individuals in total, both Germans and foreigners. Since the 1990s the number of awards has declined from over 4,000, first to around 2, 300—2,500 per year. In recent years women have made up a steady 30—31% of recipients, colloquially, the decorations of the different classes of the Order are also known as the Federal Cross of Merit. Most of the German federal states have each their own order of merit as well, with the exception of the Free and Hanseatic Cities of Bremen and Hamburg, the order was established on 7 September 1951 by the decree of the then Federal President Theodor Heuss. It is awarded to him in a ceremony by the President of the Bundestag, attended by the Chancellor of Germany, the President of the Bundesrat, other than the German president, only a foreign head of state and their spouse can be awarded with this highest class. This Grand-Cross Special Issue has been awarded so far only twice, to former German chancellors Konrad Adenauer, the star is a golden star with straight rays, its size and points vary according to class, with the badge superimposed upon it. 8-pointed golden Star, Grand Cross Special Class 6-pointed golden Star, Grand Cross 1st Class 4-pointed golden Star, Grand Cross 2nd Class silver Square-upon-point, the riband is red with gold-black-gold stripes
7.
Kurdistan Workers' Party
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The Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK is a left-wing organization based in Turkey and Iraq. The group was founded in 1978 in the village of Fis by a group of Kurdish students led by Abdullah Öcalan. In May 2007, former members of the PKK helped form the Kurdistan Communities Union, an organisation of Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq. It takes its power from the people and adapts to reach self-sufficiency in every field including the economy, in July 2015, the PKK announced that a ceasefire was over and said that Ankara had welched on its promises regarding the Kurdish issue. In August 2015, the PKK announced that they would accept a ceasefire with Turkey under United Nations or US guarantees, the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United States and the European Union. However, the United Nations and countries such as Switzerland, China, India, Russia, in the early 1970s, the organizations core group was made up largely of students led by Abdullah Öcalan in Ankara. The group focused to the large oppressed Kurdish population in south-east Turkey, a meeting on 25 November 1978, in a tea house near Diyarbakır is considered the founding meeting. On 27 November 1978, the group adopted the name Kurdistan Workers Party, espousing a Marxist ideology, the group took part in violent conflicts with right-wing entities as a part of the political chaos in Turkey at the time. Some sources claimed that the tried to assassinate the Kurdish tribal leader Mehmet Celal Bucak in 1979. They claimed that he exploited the peasants, and collaborated with Turkey in oppressing the Kurds and it is believed that this marked a period of intense urban warfare among other political elements. The PKK didnt take responsibility despite a numerous of accusations, starting in 1984, the PKK transformed into a paramilitary group, using training camps in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and France. It launched attacks and bombings against Turkish governmental installations, the military, the PKK mainly focused on attacks against Turkish military targets in Turkey. At the same time, the government started to use more violence methods to suppress Kurdish activists, from 1996 to 1999, the PKK conducted hundreds of bomb attacks against military and police bases. In the late 1990s, Turkey increased the pressure and the war between Turkey and Syria ended open Syrian support. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict was in its peak in the 90s,1999, Öcalan was captured, prosecuted and sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment as part of the governments seeking European Union membership. It partially relaxed the bans on broadcasting and publishing in the Kurdish language, at the same time, the PKK was blacklisted in many countries. On 2 April 2004, the Council of the European Union added the PKK to its list of terrorist organizations, later that year, the US Treasury moved to freeze assets of branches of the organization. The PKK went through a series of changes, and in 2003 it ended the unilateral truce declared when Öcalan was captured, despite a numerous of large offensives against the PKK bases, the government has failed in its war against the PKK
8.
Arms industry
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The arms industry, also known as the defense industry or the arms trade, is a global industry responsible for the manufacturing and sales of weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servicing of military material, equipment, and facilities. Arms-producing companies, also referred to as arms dealers, defense contractors, or as the industry, produce arms for the armed forces of states. Departments of government also operate in the industry, buying and selling weapons, munitions. An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, the arms industry also provides other logistical and operational support. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in 2012 that 2012 military expenditures were roughly 1.8 trillion United States dollars and this represents a relative decline from 1990 when military expenditures made up 4% of world GDP. Part of the money goes to the procurement of military hardware, the combined arms sales of the top 100 largest arms-producing companies amounted to an estimated $395 billion in 2012 according to SIPRI. In 2004 over $30 billion were spent in the arms trade. According to SIPRI, the volume of transfers of major weapons in 2010–14 was 16 per cent higher than in 2005–2009. The five biggest exporters in 2010–2014 were the United States, Russia, China, Germany and France, and the five biggest importers were India, Saudi Arabia, China, many industrialized countries have a domestic arms-industry to supply their own military forces. Some countries also have a legal or illegal domestic trade in weapons for use by its citizens, primarily for self-defense. Illegal trade in small arms occurs in countries and regions affected by political instability. The Small Arms Survey estimates that 875 million small arms circulate worldwide, contracts to supply a given countrys military are awarded by governments, making arms contracts of substantial political importance. Various corporations, some publicly held, others private, bid for these contracts, other times, no bidding or competition takes place. The modern arms industry emerged in the half of the nineteenth century as a product of the creation and expansion of the first large military-industrial companies. In 1854, the British government awarded a contract to the Elswick Ordnance Company of industrialist William Armstrong for the supply of his latest breech loading rifled artillery pieces and this galvanised the private sector into weapons production, with the surplus being increasingly exported to foreign countries. Armstrong became one of the first international arms dealers, selling his weapon systems to governments across the world from Brazil to Japan. In 1884, he opened a shipyard at Elswick to specialise in warship production—at the time, it was the factory in the world that could build a battleship
9.
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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The Vice Chairman outranks all respective heads of each service branch, with the exception of the Chairman, but does not have operational command authority over their service branches. The Goldwater–Nichols Act of 1986 created the position of VJCS to assist the Chairman in exercising his duties, the chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense directly to the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands. The Vice Chairman is nominated by the President for appointment and must be confirmed via majority vote by the Senate, the Chairman and Vice Chairman may not be members of the same armed force service branch. However, the President may waive that restriction for a period of time in order to provide for the orderly transition of officers appointed to serve in those positions. The Vice Chairman serves a term of office at the pleasure of the President. In case of times of war or national emergency, there is no limit to how many times an officer can be reappointed to serve as Vice Chairman, historically, the Vice Chairman has served two terms. By statute, the Vice Chairman is appointed as a general or admiral. Centered on the flag is an American bald eagle with wings spread horizontally, the talons grasp three crossed arrows. A shield with blue chief and thirteen red and white stripes is on the eagle’s breast, diagonally, from upper fly to lower hoist are four five-pointed stars, medium blue on the white, two above the eagle, and two below. The fringe is yellow, the cord and tassels are medium blue, the design was approved by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger on 20 January 1987. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Defense Acquisition Board Deputys Advisory Working Group, Joint Requirements Oversight Council Official site
10.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
11.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
12.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is, by U. S. The post of a statutory and permanent Joint Chiefs of Staff chair was created by the 1949 amendments to the National Security Act of 1947, the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act elevated the Chairman from the first among equals to becoming the principal military advisor to the President and Secretary of Defense. The National Military Command Center is part of the Joint Staff operations directorate, the Goldwater-Nichols Act places the chain of command from the President to the Secretary of Defense directly to the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands. However the services chiefs do have authority over personnel assignments and oversight over resources, the Chairman may also transmit communications to the combatant commanders from the President and Secretary of Defense as well as allocate additional funding to the combatant commanders if necessary. He also performs all other functions prescribed under 10 U. S. C. §153 or allocates those duties and responsibilities to other officers in the joint staff under his name. The principal deputy to the Chairman is the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, another 4-star general or admiral, who among many duties chairs the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is assisted by the Joint Staff, led by the Director of the Joint Staff, the National Military Command Center is part of the Joint Staff operations directorate. Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, served as the Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief from July 20,1942 to March 21,1949. He presided over meetings of what was called the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chairman is nominated by the President for appointment and must be confirmed via majority vote by the Senate. The Chairman and Vice Chairman may not be members of the armed force service branch. However, the President may waive that restriction for a period of time in order to provide for the orderly transition of officers appointed to serve in those positions. However, in a time of war or national emergency, there is no limit to how many times an officer can be reappointed to serve as Chairman, historically, the Chairman has served two terms. By statute, the Chairman is appointed as a general or admiral while holding office. All pay for officers, however, is limited by Level II of the Executive Schedule which is $15,125.10.1, Functions of the Department of Defense. Department of Defense Directive 5100.01 Functions of the Department of Defense, office of the Secretary Defense, Director of Administration and Management, Directorate for Organizational & Management Planning. Official Joint Chiefs of Staff site
United States
United States Air Force
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Command Pilot Badge
This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Government document "http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6840".
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