More than 120 retired generals wrote to Biden appearing to back a false election conspiracy

[JHB]

30. Taking a stab at it...

"GFOs" = general and flag officers. Generals and admirals, in non-militaryspeak.


Active duty:

As of November 1,2018, there were 891 active duty GFOs subject to statutory caps, which is 72 less than the maximum of 963 authorized by law.There were also another 29exempt from the statutory caps. The current number is about average for the post-Cold War era, though substantially lower than the number of GFOs in the 1960s-1980s,when the Armed Forceswere much larger in size than they are today. However, while always very small in comparison to the total force, the general and flag officer corps has increased as a percentage of the total forceover the past five decades. GFOs made up about one-twentieth of one percent (0.048%) of the total force in 1965, while they made up about one-fifteenth of one percent (0.069%) of the total force in 2018, indicating that the share of the total forcemade up of GFOs increased by 44%. Some argue that this increased proportion of GFOs is wasteful and contributes to more bureaucratic decisionmaking processes. Others counter that the increased proportion is linked to the military’s greater emphasis on joint and coalition operations, core organizational requirements, and the increasing use of advanced technologies.

Number of retirees is harder to pin down quickly, but the first guy on the list, a Coast Guard rear admiral, retired in 1991, 30 years ago. GHW Bush was president, the Soviet Union still had a month left in it, and FOX News didn't even exist yet.